Vizcain Minister of Interior Affairs unveils updated map of Vizcaino

National Vizcaino Press Conference Room, Orbis Date - October 16, 2088

The Vizcain interior minister, Nikolai Brown, energetically announces today a geographical map of the country freely available to the public from the Vizcaino Ministry of Internal Affairs website. The project was a joint collaboration between cartographers and geographers working for the government agency.

Minister Nikolai was unsure they could meet the Council assignment deadline when an enemy missile barrage against the capital destroyed the Ministry offices this past September 26. “Fortunately, we had a back-up of our progress so far, the only inconvenient was that the Culture minister wasn’t too happy about sharing office, and so gave us some threatening looks quite often”.

To this day, buildings are still undergoing repairs to the annoyance of many people despite the rapid response teams deployed right after the disaster, since the latest air defense system was supposed to prevent similar attacks from happening again. In particular, General Berry, from the Ministry of Defense, was angry about the event and ordered a full investigation. It was later discovered that the reservist tasked with operating the launchers that dawn fell asleep, and so no counter strike was fired. Thus, the Silver Dome, named for its brightly colored interceptor missiles, failed to prove its worth during its first challenge. When the soldier was interrogated, he said “Sorry guv, had a rough night, won’t happen again, promise”, and so all charges were dropped. Due to this, the Military is seriously reconsidering that maybe tasking just one person to watch the capital’s sky isn’t enough.

Coming back to the point, minister Nikolai confessed he was also upset, but because of another reason: “When news about the strike at Vizcaino city reached the Council, and that the Ministry of Internal Affairs was leveled by it, no one bothered to check if I was okay. I only had one call from the higher ups, hours later, by an acquaintance in Council, but as soon as I told him we had back-ups he hung up, not even asking about me. Fortunately no one was at the building at the time!” It is rumored that even Prime Minister herself, Sara Hudson, when informed about the immediate consequences of the attack, murmured, “We have a minister of interior? Really?”

As soon as the physical print of the map was unveiled during the press conference, the people who bothered enough to assist at such unremarkable event started shouting different phrases: “Weren’t we living in an island?”, “Where on Earth is that? Makes no sense”, “I thought the rivers crossed the nation, not its borders”, “Won’t our enemies use this against us?”, and “Who even made that? It’s rubbish”. A respected geography teacher for the National Vizcaino University present also criticized the map, protesting the scale.

When confronted about these inquiries, minister Nikolai replied “You know what? Maybe we’re not as glamorous or exciting as other government branches who work around foreign parties, but I can attest our work is also important for well-being of this country. It’s hard not to feel underappreciated, like I’m left out from the rest…” the minister remarked, not realizing most of the journalists already left the room.