I got this before war started, I'm just slow putting things down. I don't even like that I have it, but it's biting me, so, there you go.
America is at war. Australia is treated very crappily by the U.S. and withdraws troop support. There is a seriously accepted threat of bombing the U.S., especially one of the coasts, leaning toward california because I won't have to work for that too hard. Think of the children! is the outcry. Australia offers to host children. Troop ships are loaded up with them, and they head there. They're put up in various municipal buildings emptied for the purpose.
The plan is to have the children cared for until the mighty U.S. kicks ass, but then they lose, or, while not exactly losing, are so desperately fragmented that, when they come back, they won't be the same country anymore -- Nuclear holocaust. Australia is actually harmed the least as the U.S. thinks of it as a recalcitrant ally that will come around and the enemy thinks of it as a new ally. Traditional bombs are, eventually, used on Australia, but nothing nuclear. Lots of lost life, lots of geophysical activity (the level of bombing may have to be tweaked to reach that point).
Where did the children go? Should there be more than one troop ship, or did the others go down? or was there only time for one?
Is it okay that I'm posting all of this in here? This isn't exactly a fic thread.
It would probably be somewhere on the east coast, ie Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane (in descending order of likeliness, all else being equal).
Brisbane would be the closest place to the US on that list, so if they were in a hurry, that would be it.
Thanks John and Angus, that's a big help. Don't suppose you guys could tell me what the US could do to really tick off the Australians, enough to withdraw troop support?
That's fine Deena. Actually, Australia did something very similar to this with some British children in WWII...it's now a very notorious episode because a lot of the children were housed in institutions run by the Catholic church and were horribly abused.
Don't suppose you guys could tell me what the US could do to really tick off the Australians, enough to withdraw troop support?
If there was such a thing, I wish to god we'd done it in the last few months...
Don't suppose you guys could tell me what the US could do to really tick off the Australians, enough to withdraw troop support?
Well, nothing you've done so far has been enough, but the main issue of difference between the 2 countries at the moment is the way the US subsidises its farmers and denies Australia a "level playing field" for export (in spite of the fact that you're constantly preaching free trade).
Apart from that...perhaps you could accuse our swimmers of taking drugs?
Oooh, drug abuse insults, maybe coupled with accusations of lagging in support, and trying to leverage unfair subsidies out of our need for you. Huh, it would be a USian thing to cut off our noses to spite our faces and tell you guys we don't actually need you after all, so there.
Oh, Angus, maybe that's where part of the idea came from, the British children.. so, would Australia be willing to try again, or would they say heck no we don't need the bad press?
I mean, seriously, all our major cities are port cities.
*cough*Canberra*cough*
Deena, I'd send the kids to Melbourne. If there's the threat of war in the air, the further south they go, the further from potential risk they are. And Melbourne's a major enough city to make it plausible.
Thanks John and Angus, that's a big help. Don't suppose you guys could tell me what the US could do to really tick off the Australians, enough to withdraw troop support?
Trade policy, especially farm policy. Or, IOW, what Angus said. You might like to get rid of the current Australian government too, put the Labor Party back in (or at the very least replace the current PM).
