blowback mechanism debuts

Building on the success of its RPT line of personal defense weapons, the Pylta Regina Firearms Factory (PRFF) announced a new option for 2014. “RPT stands for Regina Pylta Terret,” said Thendogarst Oiylyindt, chief operating officer of PRFF. “Our slogan is, 'Easy enough, even for grandmother.' For good reason, too: our weapons are designed so that most any Grigovian – from 12 year-old member of the League of Youth Defenders to 90 year-old matriarchal block commander – can pick one up and following simple instructions drop fools from two hundred yards in defense of the motherland.” Similar to a certain popular Russian firearm, RPT rifles are designed to fire even if filled with sand, rusted shut, frozen, wet, or dropped from a 2-story building. “Our newest feature we call delayed blowback,” said Poli Daryoust while she was field-stripping and reassembling the first RPT models to emerge from the production line. “After bullet is fired, some of gas produced is stored in a chamber in the butt of rifle. When shooter is ready for next round to be chambered, she thumbs this button here, which cycles spent round out and loads another. This makes rifle more accurate compared to when fired in semi-automatic mode – for sniping situations – but of course eliminates folding stock.” Fully automatic mode is available only in the military version of the rifle; civilian models feature semi-automatic, bolt-action, and delayed blowback. Visit PRFF's official company website for more details, and happy wastreling.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

first peoples meet

Gathering for the third time in the the Queen Pylta the Terrible Hotel's Grand Ballroom and Conference Suites, representatives of indigenous tribes from around the world met in in beautiful cosmopolitan Grig. “We are happy to be here again,” said U'u'tkik Bainbridge of the Greater Inupiaq Confederacy, an organization of Native Canadians. “As are we,” said Jerry Whitefoot of America's Western Plains Sioux while patting U'u'tkik on the shoulder affectionately; “it is not often that leaders and elders of Mother Earth's aboriginal groups can come together in such welcoming and safe surroundings.” The Queen Pylta the Terrible Hotel has received the highest structural integrity ratings from the United Nation's own Architectural Security Bureau, the only hotel in Central Asia built to such exacting standards. “During the Soviet occupation of this land, we used to have to meet here in relative secrecy,” said Ooundyesst Rovend, leader of the Nearflung Free Nations of Grigovia's own indigenous Yaelong tribes. He pointed at a group of individuals dressed in the manner of Native Siberians, saying, “and I remember planning guerrilla actions against our Socialist oppressors with those ladies and gentlemen over there, although we shelved our insurrections once the Poles toppled the Russians with their Solidarity campaign.” In addition to frequent exhibits of martial prowess and numerous prayer sessions and chanting circles, the event included scores of areas where basket-weaving and drum-making and similar Native practices were being taught. The highlight of Natives Gathering in Modern Grig (or NGMG) was the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, where attempts were made to hammer out a unified platform on the following topics: stabilizing and promoting harmony between all races, and all sexes; securing and protecting mineral and resource rights for the world's Aboriginal populations; supporting independence movements among First People nations; and preserving native cultural heritage through schooling of the young and promotion among all ages of traditional methods of procurement, dress, speech, and artistic expression. “I am eternally grateful to the Grig'v'an Ministry of Culture, which subsidized and helped plan the travel arrangements for me and the other economically-challenged Native Persons,” said Daniel O'ouloungo of the North-Bank Hawettha, a Congolese indigenous group. “What a beautiful thing is cooperation.”

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on swarming micro-satellites

Eschewing standard methods for raising and operating communications and weather-tracking satellites, Queen Pylta the Terrible University in the Glorious Republic of Grigovia is pioneering the use of micro-satellites. Funded and supported by both private and public organizations, including Grigovians for A Free Cosmos and the country's National Center for Atmospheric Studies, the program is on course to reduce the cost of fielding functional orbital gear by 90% and to decentralize access to space. Lifted into the heavens by helium balloons tethered together, 4 of 12 micro-satellites fold open to become broad sails made from an ultra thin, microwave-reflective and photon-absorbent material. Using toy-inspired manipulator arms, a LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging)- and video-based guidance system, and open-source artificially-intelligent software, the other 8 micro-satellites pull themselves into place behind the surface of the sails. Ground-based emitters then bombard the sails with microwaves, pushing the cluster into near-Earth orbit. At this point, the 4 micro-satellites closest to the tethered balloons use shears to trim them loose and activate thrusters filled with compressed gas to flip over the cluster so that the sails point (some of the time) toward the sun. The cluster's final step is for the 4 remaining satellites to run out communications antennae as well as sensors for measuring atmospheric conditions. In its initial testing phase, the program shows promise, although the system of shared intelligence – individual satellites contributing any available memory and processing power, sometimes even writing new algorithms, to help solve the puzzles they as a whole face – is still in its infancy. Long live these brave robotic cosmonauts!

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on arming rebels

The Grigovian government today issued a sharp rebuke of U.S. American efforts to sell arms to bands of Islamic extremist operating on the fringes of its western province of Tera Pyltannia, which borders Iran. Independent reports verify that operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have been working ceaselessly to provide weapons to a loose collection of tribesmen known as al Qusuf. Once allied with Grigovia's own indigenous Yaelong tribes, al Qusuf were expelled from the country after briefly instituting orthodox Sharia law back in the 1840s and subsequently abusing the rights of thousands of peaceful peasant women. “For nearly all of this region's recorded history, al Qusuf have been causing trouble,” said Dr. Ulantha Grossman, professor of Central Asian history at Queen Pylta the Terrible University, in Pyltagrad. “By all accounts, the members of al Qusuf are bad, dangerous people whose tools are repression, fear, and murder. The American government appears to be growing increasingly desperate in its attempts to destabilize the Iranian government prior to its impending violation of the latter nation's sovereignty. If this is how the Ynki spreads freedom and democracy, we want no part of it.“

Grigovian scouting parties recently captured dozens of rocket-propelled grenades as well as surface-to-air missiles capable of punching a modern fighter jet out of the sky, all of them stamped “Made In America.” Scores of individuals attempting to deliver these sophisticated weapons systems to contacts in the various al Qusuf militias were arrested, temporarily hobbled, and sent back to Washington with stern warnings against further unwarranted meddling. (In accordance with a longstanding national law, members of al Qusuf found within the borders of Grigovia are given the chance to flee; if they refuse, they are strangled to death.) “We have little control over how the American government treats the Iranians to our west or the Afghanis to our south,” said Pendogarst Ulyind, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Grigovian Border Defense Forces, from a network of well-provisioned caves somewhere in the mountains east of the Iranian-Grigovian border. “We as a people learned enough from being treated as a doormat for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, however, to recognize clandestine foreign intervention for what it is – outright intrusion on our national sovereignty as well as a threat to regional stability.”

At least a dozen CIA operatives were carrying dossiers containing detailed information in languages familiar to al Qusuf about sites crucial to Grigovian infrastructure. “From the contents of these dossiers we conclude that U.S. American intelligence agencies are planning also to destabilize our own country's democratically elected government,” said Piendoyast Tormund, deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for the state of Grigovia. “My office has already begun to draft a binding United Nations resolution that aims to curtail Ynki activities here in Central Asia, and we are working with Russia Today and al Jazeera to draw attention to the fact that the U.S. appears to be arming forces hostile to Liberty and the rule of law in places beyond its own borders, which violates numerous international statutes as well as its own legal code.” The Glorious Republic of Grigovia shares more than a hundred kilometers of mountainous, largely inaccessible border with Iran. In recent years, the nation has resisted nearly a dozen ham-fisted attempts by American consortia and corporations to gain control over its vast resources of rare-earth minerals.

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Zampyut the Sad

The young wife of King Zampyut the Wise had died during childbirth, and he was lonely. His other, grown children were off at different royal courts conducting business and forming alliances; his subjects were happy, housed, and well-provisioned; and the courtier who had been his most outspoken critic had been mistaken for a stag recently, and shot. Not only was the king lonely, he was also bored. His foul mood lifted and great joy flooded his heart upon hearing that a maiden had been spotted in the far reaches of the realm whose beauty outshone that of all others. “Bring her to me,” the king commanded to Thoraei, head of his security detail. “But be gentle, lest her fairness be ruined.” At once the man set to his given task, riding out forthwith and questioning many peasants as to the whereabouts of the mysterious maiden.

Having tracked her down in a hamlet nestled in the dizzying heights of the towering Yiptlong massif, Thoraei had her placed in a carriage and escorted back to the gilded halls of his king. “To where are you taking me?” the maiden asked, to no avail; awed by her radiant loveliness, the men of her escort were unable to look at her, let alone respond. ”The rumors were true,” King Zampyut said with tears running down his cheeks as he greeted the maiden at the outer boundary marker of his capital city. “Please, child, tell me your name.” “Vrida,” the maiden said, her dark hair and fair skin glowing in the light of the setting sun. Without another word, the king dismounted, helped Vrida from her carriage, and asked for her hand in marriage, right there in the dusty road. A wedding! What joy, the commoners said, what good fortune that our king has found a new queen so quickly.

Vrida, however, who had grown up chasing horses and eating wild onions in lush high valleys, began to curse her lot. 'Here I sit,' she thought, 'trapped in a stone tower in a strange city being dressed and poked at by foolish and soft-handed women, and all I want to do is run once more with my ponies.' “What do you desire, my Queen-soon-to-be?” said Zampyut upon composing himself after having seen her the next morning. “I wish only to go home, my King, and live the life of any other high-valley maiden; I miss my horses.” “I shall have your horses brought here. Would that make you smile?” “Please do not, my King – it would kill them to leave their home, just as it is killing me.” At this the King rose up angrily, making many threats and even kicking at a young errand boy who strayed within his reach. “Now that your sadness is known to me, it tarnishes my image of your beauty. As your King, I command you to be happy.” “Please, oh wise sovereign, let me leave again, and return to my family,” Vrida said. “No,” the reply; “you are mine, and shall stay mine.” That night, with a last long look at the cluster of stars to which she as a child would tell her darkest secrets, the beautiful maiden flung herself from her tower window onto the rocks below. Not only was the King lonely once more, his desolation was now saturated with sadness.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

the young stranger

(Grigovian fairy tales 4)

It was the Week of the Lit Windows. As was their custom, the townspeople had placed candles in the windows that faced the road and gone to bed with their doors unlocked. Unlike the year before, however, winter had arrived early, furious blizzards piling the snowbanks high and keeping everyone but the most hardy inside. All hoped that someone would bring a change in the monotony, that a visitor would arrive to enliven the dark and dismal evenings.

Sure enough, one evening, a strange young man burst through the door to the Kiergoyast household. He stamped the snow off of his boots and leaned his wood-framed pack against the wall in the small foyer, where it dripped onto the polished floor. Iyoan Kiergoyast and his wife, Baruwvel, showed the stranger to his quarters and invited him to dinner. They pulled out his chair for him, the place of honor at the far end of the table, next to the youngest children. The young man told tales of crossing the high mountain passes and fleeing bandits in the sun-drenched valleys of far Hinntia, which, he claimed, lay many weeks' journey to the south, and to the east. After dinner, he shared a pipe of fine czabtyip with Iyoan and told the children stories of magnificent foreign beasts before he excused himself and went to bed, falling asleep promptly. No one heard or saw the young man leave, but the next morning, to their delight, the children found small carvings of strange animals sitting in their wooden eating dishes. The eldest girl, however, a maiden of 16 years named Opol, said she had awoken in the middle of the night to find the strange young man standing in the foyer, dressed only in his underthings and leaning mightily against the door whilst holding a knife in his hand. She claimed that his eyes had flashed with an unusual inner light and that he seemed convinced something was trying to come through the door, although she had heard nothing but his frantic panting.

Some months later, during the Festival of Life's Reawakening, a neighboring family told a similar story. A strange young man had come to their house near the end of the Week of Lit Windows; he had carried a traveling pack of unusual construction; he had given the children small wooden figurines; and he had roamed throughout the house, late at night, with a knife in his hands, although he had not brought to anyone harm, nor had he violated either of their beautiful young daughters. The village seer, an white-haired old woman named Uulanthia, said she'd had a dream in which the young man revealed himself to be the long-lost son of Queen Pylta Pyltandyennd, and that his nightly vigilance had paid off when he thwarted a group of prince-killers, who had been indeed following him, by waiting for them into the wee hours of the morning and dispatching them with swift thrusts of his blade as they came through the door.

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Shuiryiff Rovend, legendary weaver

(Grigovian fairy-tales 2)

Shuiryiff Rovend was a weaver of renown. When not mending clothes for her own or the neighbors' children, she wove rugs and throws, blankets and draperies, things both beautiful and durable. Of all the animal wools and plant fibers she had spun into yarn and woven into works of utilitarian art, however, she had not ever used the pelt of the yip-yipt-yend, an elusive, nearly mythical beast.

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of her country's self-liberation from Austro-Hungarian rule, Queen Pylta Pyltandyennd invited all Grigovians to showcase their artistry and ingenuity at the inauguration of Independence Square, a vast swath of green in central Grig.

'This is my chance to honor my grandparents, who died fighting for our freedom,' Shuiryiff said to her husband, upon hearing the news.

'My love, your ancestors and mine died in that war, but my skills do not extend beyond the engineering of bridges,' Wu-Zsi Rovend replied to his wife. 'Please weave a beautiful rug, or garment, and make both our families proud. My cousins are Yaelong; they live where the yip-yipt-yend live. Go to them and fetch your wool.'


After many days of travel, Shuiryiff finally tracked down her husband's cousins. Although they had never met her before, they took her in, fed her, and made her up a bed, promising to bring her to the yip-yipt-yend in the morning. Exhausted from her trip up into the high, wind-swept valleys, Mrs. Rovend soon fell asleep.

True to their word, the next morning a band of Yaelong stood ready to track down one of the elusive beasts. They were armed with net, prong, and snare.

'I do not wish to bring the animals to harm,' Shuiryiff said, eying the men's tools warily.

'It is unlikely we will even be able to find the animal's tracks, let alone catch one,' said one of the tribesmen, a young, bright-eyed boy. 'But your concern pleases us and Weuilou, the spirit of this region.'

The group saw only one yip-yipt-yend, from too far away to catch but close enough that one of the men unslung his rifle and was making ready to fire.

Shuiryiff, however, begged him to halt. 'Please, do not kill it,' she said pleadingly.

Because of her clemency and kindness, the Yaelong gave her two large bags full of the mythical beast's wool, their entire collection of the valuable threads. They had gathered it over many years and on countless roaming patrols, pulling it from high branches or teasing it out of the thick underbrush.

Upon her return home, Shuiryiff kissed her husband, hugged her children, and bent to the task of weaving the strands into a simple, functional garment designed to protect the wearer from the elements. She had just enough to make a single cloak, with a hood. As the day of the inauguration approached, the weaver traveled to the capital with her children. She chose a spot in the park and hung her cloak from a portable rack, a simple structure made of birch wood.

Soon enough, Queen Pylta came along. She was gracious with her words, praising and calling out happily as she perused the many works of fine art. When she came to the cloak, however, she fell silent, and approached it with grave awe.

'I am sorry, my queen, for bringing such a simple cloak,' said Shuiryiff. 'This glorious day called for better, but my skills are lacking, my fingers too stiff, my loom too rickety.'

Turning to face the gathering crowds, Her Somewhat Royal Majesty Pylta Pyltandyennd said: 'Look ye upon the winner of our competition. This woman wove the wool of a mythical beast into a cloak. The pattern is one from Grigovia's past, a pattern we had long thought lost, and the style of manufacture is one steeped in this nation's and proud long traditions. This woman, my dear friends and assembled fellow country-persons, is a prime example of the strength and ingenuity of the Grigovian people. To be just, I shall lay eyes upon the rest of the exhibits before we all retire to the tables near the fountain, for a modest snack.'

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

Grigovia establishes preserve

In efforts aimed to negate growing pressure from a half dozen American-owned consortia to open their pristine high valleys to nub-logging for hardwoods and strip-mining for precious-earth-metals, the government of the Glorious Republic of Grigovia (GROG) – authorized by a majority of its citizens, 99% of whom voted in the referendum – protected large swaths of its pristine countryside from runaway economic development. Named for Queen Pylta Pyltandyennd, who ruled the country for over a half century, from 1842 to 1897, the Pylta The Terrible National Ecological Protection Area (PTTNEPA) encompasses nearly half of the country's entire landmass, an area roughly the size of America's state of Connecticut.

Dubbed 'The Terrible' by a proto-Russian czar who had tried and failed nearly a dozen times to add her relatively small realm to his, Queen Pylta is celebrated within GROG as an early adopter of electricity (she was close friends with Nikola Tesla), as the inventor of the sweet-yet-spicy fermented green-tuber borscht, and as a gentle matriarch who sacrificed greatly for her subjects. She is remembered on the first Thursday in April, on Pyltafessd, a national holiday during which the people of Grig and the inhabitants of even the smallest village recharge their flashlight batteries and clean out their cupboards, at dusk going from house to house to share with each other the last of their winter stores, singing local folk-songs and lighting the way with their dazzlingly-bright pocket torches.

“We Grigovians are not against mining, or logging,” said Ristlünnd Yindlong, spokesman for the Resources Extraction Council, a voluntary national organization that researches and develops techniques for minimally-invasive resource extraction. “Miners and lumberjacks make up about 5% of the workforce and contribute roughly 10% to our overall gross domestic product. We, however, are against practices that are done hastily and without regard for biodiversity; that do not consider the needs of this nation's citizens and wildlife; and that violate the many rights of Nature, as defined by our Constitution. Personally, I signed the referendum in part to protect our high valleys, the only place in the world known to harbor drop-and-crawl moss, or autokineticus grigovianus. I invite you to stop by my flat this April, and pick up a jar of spiced apple butter.” In addition to establishing PTTNEPA, the national referendum also placed a ten year moratorium on new taxation and made it a crime to get all up in someone else's personal business.

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