STEC Archives, Print Document Division
Curator signature: Jer
Format: Message, Personal Object, Hand-written
Object: Collection, Personal Correspondences of New Jersey, [ID redacted]
Time (if known): [Classified]
Editor’s Note: Should we mention the fact that shipgirls often don’t need to sleep due to, well, us being superhuman and all?Skip it for this portion – I didn’t pull that many all-nighters, you know! Jer
Notes taken during meeting w/Consulting team E – Domestic Affairs on [DATE REDACTED]
Topic: Fear/panic induced in population-at-large due to Abyssal incursion resulting in large groups of civilians fleeing their residences. Would like to mitigate or prevent without resorting to lockdown/ban on inter-state travel.
Impact: Severe disruption to domestic affairs & likely severely straining conventional civilian resources in terms of managing the country at large.
Impact on the practical aspect of the Abyssal War: Negligible.
Legal basis: Debatable but not anticipated to be significant challenge. US Supreme Court has consistently recognized an implicit constitutional right to travel (Article IV; 5th/14th amendment) but has neither precedent nor experience in relevant (recent) times during a natural disaster or crisis.
Burden of determining whether or not actions taken by relevant authorities only necessitates “reasonable” and “necessary” – which can be easily justified by the invasion of extra-dimensional pseudoaquatic hostile creatures (i.e. Abyssal fleet).
State authorities are likely to react based on local population demand, making it difficult to anticipate outcome.
Relevant authorities requiring reinforcement: State-by-state level, but DHS, DoI, DoT likely on priority list.
Analysis:
- We already have contingency plans to deal with relevant issues, up to and including evacuating both coasts of the United States. However…
- Assume inevitability & plan accordingly to match this inevitability.
- STEC has the resources to enforce and regulate individual regions in the short term, and civilian authorities likely will prioritize development of plans accordingly should this specific issue come to pass.
- Contingency plan “Temple” has specifics where we could plausibly shift a portion of STEC assets towards sustaining daily life of the United States at-large, but the situation in which would require its activation has chilling ramifications for the Abyssal War.
- Assume reasonableness. If individuals still choose to move in spite of coordinated efforts on our part, we should assume they have a good reason and assist in what ways we can.
- Basis for equipment upgrade for DoT has been integrated into every major intersection of the Interstate. Can rapidly deploy technology to interface w/ MERLIN to assess in real time interstate usage and adjust accordingly.
- USSR representative in meetings prior has raised interesting ideas about state-sponsored labor projects involving displaced civilians. While STEC believe that it is not necessary to implement this sort of program, feasibility assessment of some sort of “shovel ready work” equivalent, particularly involving temporary STEC projects, is on-going.
- Purpose feeds directly into STEC’s overarching objective in terms of maintaining morale. Civilians displayed from their homes are already demoralized – we believe currently it would be to the best interest of the United States to do our part to uplift the spirits of displaced individuals by providing gainful employment.
- Project criteria must include:
- Non-vital for the Abyssal War, but nonetheless carries some concrete meaningful purpose – enough so that they are not detrimental to the contractors at large psychologically.
- Flexibly adaptive, with minimal skills required – preference & qualifications are secondary to character which we can assess very well.
- Flexibly scalable, capable of upscaling or downscaling # of personnel on a rapid basis.
- Tightly regulated, where intrusion and impact on ordinary civilian livelihoods and businesses, including issues such as pay, competition, and labor availability are minimized.
- STEC has the resources to enforce and regulate individual regions in the short term, and civilian authorities likely will prioritize development of plans accordingly should this specific issue come to pass.
- Currently two major implementation strategies in place
- Resource management
- Personal vehicle access and subsequent travel are likely to be severely impacted due to fuel rationing, and additional factors can be implemented as the situation requires.
- Advantage: Easy to implement.
- Advantage: Minimal additional resources needed.
- Advantage: Incurs no additional psychological/morale issues given it is well-expected for wartime conditions.
- Disadvantage: Difficult to enforce.
- Disadvantage: Likely to be severely tested/strained given the locally geographical nature of Abyssal attacks.
- Disadvantage: Not particularly adaptive to extraordinary circumstances.
- Personal vehicle access and subsequent travel are likely to be severely impacted due to fuel rationing, and additional factors can be implemented as the situation requires.
- State of Emergency implementation
- Shelter-in-place orders may be enacted to strictly enforce travel restrictions on a need-by-need basis.
- Advantage: For certain areas this may be necessary given known Abyssal attack patterns or tactics, and would require no additional implementation.
- Advantage: Compliance is likely to be high, particularly in the light of Abyssal attacks.
- Disadvantage: Severely limiting and disruptive to daily life, resulting in either low sustainability or else significant resources allocated to maintain the region’s “lifeline.”
- Shelter-in-place orders may be enacted to strictly enforce travel restrictions on a need-by-need basis.
- Resource management
- STEC is currently working on bolstering surge capabilities of local civic authorities, under the strategic consideration that people are unlikely to flee if they feel safe.
- Our concern is that internal/civic unrest may provide an even larger concern than anticipated, particularly in light of Abyssal ground-attack potential.
- Feasibility assessment in place about enhancing local law enforcement agencies.
- Proper dispersion of afflicted personnel are of major immediate concern for STEC. Urban dispersion teams are already actively training in anticipation of major crisis.
- Major advances have been made in the development of firefighting equipment specialized against Abyssal “terror bombing.” Heavy firefighting vehicles are in-inventory, but currently lack adaptation towards commonly accessible civilian fuel sources.
- Experimental “stasis” technology is currently under active exploration.
- Our concern is that internal/civic unrest may provide an even larger concern than anticipated, particularly in light of Abyssal ground-attack potential.
- Next meeting to take place on [REDACTED], or approximately four months from today.