Roger, I have a modest proposal for you

[Junkenstein]

On lengthy consideration of your situation, both personally and nationwide, I have an idea that may be beneficial to you.

Firstly, let us establish some key facts.

Fact #1 - You deal with management that is ineffective, incompetent and unlikely to be missed in a significant regard.

Fact #2 - The mountain is doing very important work.

Fact #3 - A mountain is a pretty easy position to defend.

Fact #4 - The equipment atop said mountain is valuable.

Fact #5 - Walmarts and such are everywhere and provide huge quantities of goods, both edible and practical.

Fact #6 - The potable water problem is moving to being resolved.

Fact #7 - There is only one non suicidal path up/down the mountain.


When considering these facts and the general way your country is going, a solution seems quite obvious.

I propose that you consider taking a leaf from Cliven Bundy's book and militia up. Quietly. Feed upper management to nearby bears, dedicate a person from middle/lower management to be responsible for maintaining their communications to the outside world.

Done right, you could probably stockpile enough food and sundries to last for a few years. With a few relatively simple preparations the mountain could be turned into something close to a bond villan's hideout. If you're not inclined to feed the bears then the management could be set to tunnelling duties for a handy escape route. If you're suitably low-key about enough of this, you could probably last 6 months before anyone even realises there's been a coup.

Even if you're discovered sooner than this, just follow the Bundy playbook of being insanely fucking unreasonable and you might just be allowed to get away with it. In the meantime, you've got time to SCIENCE to your hearts content. Even when you are discovered, you have the perfect platform to espouse whatever you feel like to a national audience. The more crazy you go with that, the more supporters you'll attract.


This is far from a complete plan, but the bones are there and it's got to be worth considering. When your county is turning to shit, surely the best approach is to sidestep it and just get on with the crap that actually matters anyway.


I look forward to your response and eventual takeover of Mt. Roger.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The water thing isn't an issue if I lay in some calcium and mag.  Control of the pills would give me a certain level of authority.

There is a 300 foot deep escape shaft that goes nowhere, which is how we like it.

There is no shortage of food, as I am not above eating mice.

The bears are unreasonably non-threatening, but that's why we have mountain lions.

I can collapse part of the Southwest Ridge to block the road at the 9 mile mark.

This is all very workable (I can already think of about a hundred demands), but on the downside, I don't think anyone would care.  It probably wouldn't even affect our funding.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

it would be funny, though.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Does The Nation have anything like a retraction clause in the lease? There's your legal pretext for territory dispute... and you DID kinda meet a major diety. The observatory administration could just be quietly "escaped" and a few new documents signed. Boom! No reason to even wake the astronomers, as you were citizens.

[Junkenstein]

it would be funny, though.

That's a good enough reason for most things.