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Through the Storm - Country Blurbs/Stories (WIP)
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Theme - Dreams of a Home | Capital: GöteborgInside the institutions and debate halls of the old Scandinavian and Nordic Federations- at the time, the only ones that still operated- an idea began to take shape. The idea of a nation that always strove to be kinder, to be more benevolent, to be better, to help more, and never ceased or slowed in this pursuit- an idea that had always existed in fantasy and the imagination, but one that seemed tantalizingly close in the closing years of the Nordic Federation's life. A nation truly dedicated to the service and the welfare of its people, chasing no delusions of power or greatness. A new, greater folkhemmet. With a democracy completely intact and a nation mostly so, spared from the Storm by a combination of a small amount of foresight and a large amount of luck, Polarea seemed to be in a prime position to lead the world back into the electronic light. The philosophers of the universities and schools were often in contact with the politicians and cynical bureaucrats of the Federation, a few of whom would hold the reins of power in 2033- when the Nordic Federation accepted Karelia into its ranks, after having essentially been the region's economic and security benefactor for years, and thus possessed an ill-fitting moniker. The Leinonen government proposed Polarea, referencing the country's closeness to the Arctic and the north star on which much of its national mythology was based. Though the change was initially only to the name, the new Federal Commonwealth, slowly, began to resemble the quasi-utopian dreams of dreamers decades past, in its nearly substantive democracy, expansive welfare state, booming economy, powerful technological advantage and global pacifism.
The new state professed itself itself to be an expansion of the Scandinavian experiment- under the direction of a powerful left-wing political machine, Polarea's social democrats and democratic socialists spoke of a nation without fear- where the worker did not fear their boss, where the writer did not fear the censor, where the destitute would not fear of cold nights, and, according to detractors, where idealism did not fear practicality. Whether the Federal Commonwealth has lived up to its aspirations of a people's home, or has grown, complacent, stagnant and reliant on its technological head start and social safety net is a subject of fierce debate. The ideals behind those aspirations persisted however- where most expected the fires of imagination would burn out in a few years, the Polarean political system remained filled with those who genuinely believed in their causes, and who would fight to uphold them- even in the face of overwhelming odds.. On July 3rd, 2059, as Arcadia, a physical, tangible symbol of Polarean unity, progress and advancement (built by the Dutch), burned, half submerged on the Dogger Bank and destroyed in the world's first (and likely not last) bout of nuclear terrorism, the flame of a nation's collective passion and perseverance burned as bright as ever, now fed with potent fuels of spite and of revenge. Losing their spirit- the spirit that defined their experiment- would be defeat, and so, in defiance, and in spite, Polaris, injured and cracked, shone in the sky as bright as ever, for it was her cynosural duty to lead her people home.
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Theme - the Red Dragon Roars | Capital: BeijingThe Beijing emergency government, one of six polities that claimed the legacy of the People's Republic of China in the wake of the Storm and arguably the most legitimate, declared the Chinese nation reborn in full after the capture of Lanzhou from the local warlord in early 2034. Lieutenant General Chen Lei, de facto leader of the emergency government and a mostly apolitical military strategist, desired not to repeat what he perceived as the mistakes that doomed the PRC to shatter in the Storm, and drew up a plan to hand leadership off to a carefully constructed civilian government by mid-2034. The patchwork of rehabilitated warlords, community leaders, company men and military governors that held the emergency government together was fragile, however, and to avoid angering them by inevitably excluding some from the new government, a rudimentary constitutional convention was hastily called. An overwhelming majority of the convention delegates made their first requirement clear- the new China would be federal. To which degree was more debatable, but an entirely unitary constitution would see Chen Lei's quasi-militia armies and economic support disintegrate. The lieutenant general conceded, and so did the rest of the military command structure under his influence. Perhaps some of the delegates believed in the righteousness of a federal system, but it cannot be denied that a majority desired to preserve their own power. Outside of this change in governance, the new constitution created a state relatively similar to the People's Republic that died in 2026, with elements of Dengist economic rhetoric and importance placed on foreign policy.
On August 1st, 2034, the 107th anniversary of the Nanchang Uprising, the People's Federation of China legally came into being, claiming and eventually taking jurisdiction of all of China, outside of the claimed but independent Tibet and Uyghuristan, as well as Taiwan, which the PFC later normalized relations with. This new People's Federation jumped onto the world stage, quickly claiming and jumpstarting the industrial and economic legacy of old China. While America, across the sea, found itself embroiled in a civil war, China reached out generously to the world and to its own people, quickly taking the mantle of Asia's benefactor; the factories and offices of China buzzed with fervent activity even as Jiangsu Province vanished beneath the rising waves. The People's Liberation Army, showered with funding, took to the seas and skies to solidify the People's Federation's position across the Eastern Hemisphere, and eventually the Western as well, as analysts across the world declared the true beginning of the Asian Century, with a new superpower at its center. A precious few officials in Beijing know a deeper truth, however- China's working population is shrinking at a rate that its industrial automation is far too slow to keep up with, aging into seniors with little savings due to stagnant quality of life and working pay. Regional insurgencies in Sichuan and Yunnan has made any sort of military operation or rural government control in afflicted areas difficult and costly, and vast criminal organizations, protected by systematic corruption, freely cross the border with the free states of Southeast Asia. The nation's politicized, increasingly inefficient military and polarized party leadership can do little but infight; every day, the idea of a truly socialist China withers. The Red Dragon Roars, and slowly, but surely, it is falling to the Earth.
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Theme - a Republic of Data | Capital: ParisA nameless man gazed outside his window- a public loudspeaker announced the beginning of curfew and new ration regulations as rain fell hard on the city of Lyon. Only a few buildings in the distance projected electric light into the night- mostly government and police offices on the outskirts, while Lyon itself remained dark, lit only by makeshift lanterns and candlelight. This was what democracy had given his city- dark nights, random arrests, martial law and ever-decreasing rations of critical supplies. This was what Marcelin Remi Palomer and the French Republic had given his city- nothing. For years, the man had survived, barely living off government rations and with only one luxury- a mechanical typewriter, a precious and valued tool after the quiet fall, selling for hundreds of ration stamps in the informal market. Despite having little use for it beyond the occasional written ramble, the man had held on to his instead of selling it, and realized now that he had found a purpose for the machine. Backing away from the window and setting his lantern down on an old desk, a nameless man failed by democracy began to write the manifesto of Progress.
The writings of a Lyonnais whose identity has been lost to the sands of time birthed the Progress movement, a resistance that quickly spread throughout a French people who had seen democracy wither and die before their very eyes. Other persistent but small groups opposed to the French emergency government were quickly subsumed into Progress, their ideologies erased and replaced by the organization's ultimate desire for a technocratic, efficient France that could effortlessly provide for its people in times of plenty and times of need. Defections from the Gendarmarie, Police and Ground Army, whose personnel had never seen an organized, nationwide resistance to Palomer's regime, bolstered the organization's strength and ability to directly confront French troops. Progress soon began a coordinated skirmish campaign against Gendarmarie troops in the French countryside, wrestling a large area of the French Alps and the Massif Central from French government control and arming themselves through a sympathetic Occitan government. Solidifying its de facto control of much of rural southern France by late 2039, Progress agents spread through the rest of the country, rallying mutinous military units and increasingly agitated civilians for a coup against Paris. This coup began on August 16th, 2040, decaying instead into a two-day nationwide bloodbath as Progress and loyalist military units clashed across northern France, with numerous civilians killed in the crossfire. Nevertheless, with the capital eventually surrounded by mutinous army units, Palomer declared Paris an open city, ordered his last few loyalists to stand down and fled in an unmarked truck to Wallonia, where he lived in obscurity until his natural death in 2055.
Progress, immediately beginning the difficult transition from illegal resistance organization to dominant political party, expanded the institutions that had effectively governed rural southern France for a year and a half to the rest of the country and set on writing a new, technocratic, constitution, which was ratified on January 1st, 2041, birthing the Rational State of France, sometimes known as the Seventh Republic, from the ruins of the French Republic. As a gesture of gratitude to Occitania, one of the new government's first moves was to officially recognize the Occitan state, though it would take much longer to normalize relations with Brittany. The party of Progress set on finally implementing its vision of a technocratic France, guided by reason, logic and a scientific, rather than political or emotional, outlook on the mechanisms of state. Today, the Rational State, guided by the Moderates, leads the world's Rationalists, technocrats and scientocrats, constantly experimenting and constantly analyzing to achieve the most practical, optimal result. Some believe it reduces the people of France to numbers on a chart, statistics to be analyzed by faceless and inevitably corrupt bureaucrats- other believe it embodies a new French Revolution, applying modern, scientific and logical principles to governance and policymaking in a way no other government has done before. Only the future can tell.
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Theme - a Siberian Morning | Capital: Novosibirsk (judicial capital in Veliky Novgorod)WIP
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Theme - Mother Anarchy Loves Her Sons | Capital: eThekwini/DurbanWIP
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Theme - Waltzing Matilda | Capital: CanberraWhen the world fell into chaos, disorder and moonlit darkness in the late 2020s, the Commonwealth of Australia's civilian government was one of the few such regimes to survive the Storm in control of all of its major population centers while still operating normally. From Canberra, exhausted civil servants regularly communicated by mail and messenger with the cities of Australia on the east coast, and occasionally even with Perth or the northern coast. For a good few months, it looked as if Australia would, miraculously, stay together, and stay sane- this idea was quickly ended by the failures of men.
Australia, unlike many other nations, was still roughly food secure after the Storm- it possessed plentiful farmland, though production would have to be quickly ramped up to account for the Storm's destruction of most technologically advanced farming equipment, and had relatively secure food stockpiles even after the total cessation of shipborne imports, given that those ships no longer functioned; the Commonwealth, managed well, could survive. Instead of instituting prudent food management policies and creating an adequate government distribution system to replace looted storefronts, however, greed and mismanagement defined Australia's Storm. Food was hoarded by prominent politicians, supplies of critical medicines were forgotten and abandoned in the outback, farms were nationalized and then sold at low rates to speculators and political allies, and little care was given to the morale of the police, military or people by Parliament House. Intermittent electricity was directed to Canberra and critical political battlegrounds instead of going to hospitals and water treatment facilities. In all, Australia and its people were driven into functional poverty by chronic corruption, mismanagement and greed on the part of its unchanging ruling class- and when their mistakes began to bite into their voting bases, Australia's politicians turned to the nation's great companies to protect their wealth and power. One sector, in particular, became the cornerstone of Canberra's survival- the resource conglomerates that had silently dominated Australian politics in the early 2020s took a much more visible position in the government, bribing military commanders and units to the service of friendly politicians and hyper-rich companies and destroying any semblance of public oversight of the military.
In 2031, when a reformist Prime Minister overstepped their boundaries, the companies reacted quickly- using their immense political influence and symbiotic relationship with the military to orchestrate a swift and practically unopposed coup of the Australian government. In its place rose the Australian Defense League- a far-right political party/quasi-military organization officially created to safeguard and defend the Australian people from internecine politics and outside threats in this time of chaos and darkness. No one was ignorant of the truth, however- the League existed only to safeguard the interests of the military and the corporations, dealing the final death blow to a democratic system that had been decaying for decades. In time, the company men would not only support the ADL, but enter its ranks and government, formalizing the intertwined alliance between Australia's military and its massive conglomerates. The people of Australia found themselves chained and bound- no more did the capital even pretend to serve their interests, for instead, the people were born to serve the League. Quiet, obedient Australians are allowed a modicum of liberty, kept satisfied with basic amenities, tasteless state media and bland food rations, slowly indoctrinated to serve the ADL and the ruling class. Dissenters are disappeared, sent to "corrective labor colonies" in the outback, where they will toil the rest of their lives for the profit of Canberra- escape is impossible, for the scorching, desolate Australian wilderness is the greatest executioner of them all.
When the world found Australia, it was horrified- a continent chained to serve the whims of completely unrestrained capitalism, an old democracy destroyed by corruption and stagnancy. When Australia found the world, it drew up strategies for market infiltration and profit; massive black markets around the world were flooded with Australian manufactures and resources, stained with the blood of the innocent. When the free nations of the Earth condemned the League, Major General Scott Caplan only took a seat and smiled, watching his nation's first ever successful nuclear weapons test.
Overview WIP |
Theme - Lotus Bloom | Capital: HanoiIn what is popularly known locally as the Lightless Years, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam had many of its institutions destroyed or rendered useless and its effective control limited to the north of the country, where an emergency government struggled to keep control of Hanoi and the Red River Delta, even as its land was slowly eroded away by the rising Gulf of Tonkin. In the south, as the once biodiverse Mekong Delta was swallowed by the seemingly inexorable inland march of the sea, the peoples of south Vietnam had to move. Some fled to neighboring Cambodia, which had a national catastrophe undergoing itself and could spare little to support them, but the majority moved north, settling in whatever housing and land was available north of the largely abandoned and partially flooded Ho Chi Minh City. These self-contained migrant communities quickly evolved into established villages and communes, integrating with the existing local population and setting the standard mode of government in southern Vietnam for the next few years, growing in size as more and more Vietnamese fled north. From 2027 to 2034, Vietnam north and south of the Annamite Range near Da Nang effectively functioned independently of each other, with fishing and semifrequent trade forming the only links between the two.
In 2032, despite faint, hopeful signs of radio contact with neighboring governments, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam finally collapsed. Its resource stocks were depleted desperately defending against raids by Laotian and Chinese warlords, and its people's morale was depleted by years of strict rationing, weak leadership and the expansion of the Gulf of Tonkin. On April 2nd, 2033, a protest-turned-riot accidentally killed Minister of Transport and de facto emergency head of government Nguyễn Văn Thể, causing the Hanoi government, weakened and rudderless, to effectively disintegrate. In its place, a semi-underground public assistance organization and formerly semi-illegal purveyor of law and order, the Red River Courts Union, filled the power vacuum, though not without a week of uncontested anarchy in Hanoi. The RRCU provided a semblance of order in the formal government's absence, and quickly found itself expanding while absorbing the remnants of the old Việt Tân democracy movement. Eventually stylizing itself as the dubiously legitimate successor to both the Việt Tân and the Socialist Republic, it adopted much of the social democratic ideology of the former while retaining some of the characteristics of an aid organization. By 2034, the Red River Courts Union had expanded to the borders of old Vietnam in the north, and eventually to just north of Da Nang, where the road connections to southern Vietnam were severed in the early days of the Lightless Years, and the only maritime connections available were on small sailing craft.
In 2032, in the midst of faint, hopeful signs of radio contact with neighboring governments, the Provisional Federation of Southern Vietnam officially came into being at the close of a conference of 131 city, town and rural leaders in Bảo Lộc. Despite retaining small amounts of socialist iconography, it was not and did not claim to be the successor of the Vietnamese socialist tradition, instead being a confederation and trade council of 48 polities united to defend and to advance their common interests. The Provisional Federation extended over most of southern Vietnam, with some isolationist settlements preferring not to join in the initial conference, though all were later absorbed diplomatically or by force in the coming years. The PFSV developed into a highly decentralized communal democracy, with power invested primarily in the oft-bickering communes, quite similar to Primorsky. Reaching a semblance of stability internally, the PFSV looked outward, becoming a mutually begrudging ally of the authoritarian Interim Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia to the west, and spreading its influence north until hitting the blocked roads at Da Nang, the border with the Red River Courts Union.
At Da Nang, via watercraft, emissaries of the RRCU and PFSV exchanged greetings and formal diplomatic missions, officially reconnecting the northern and southern halves of Vietnam for the first time in seven years. A repeat of the Vietnam War was completely off the table- neither polity had anywhere near the amount of war materiel needed to prosecute a war of reunification. In diplomatic terms, the two states were relatively compatible- both wished to reunite Vietnam, both were at least somewhat decentralized liberal democracies, both evolved from self-governing communities, and the regimes of both governments at the time were well-inclined to negotiations. A few sticking points had to be dealt with: the RRCU stylized itself as the successor of both the Việt Tân and the Hanoi socialist government, while the PFSV wanted nothing to do with either; the PFSV had aided and had received aid from the authoritarian Cambodian interim government, which the RRCU despised. Nevertheless, it took only a few months to clear things up, and the diplomats shifted to drafting a unification treaty and provisional constitution for the new Vietnam; a bicameral parliamentary federal republic, with a lower House of Representatives and an upper Federation Council to champion the interests of the people and the communes, respectively. The legislative institutions of the Provisional Federation would expand across Vietnam, while the judicial and aid organizations of the Courts Union would accordingly stretch south. Quickly coming to an agreement that satisfied both parties, the Federal Republic of Vietnam was declared to the world by radio on the 8th of February, 2035, after the legal dissolution of the Red River Courts Union and the Provisional Federation of Southern Vietnam.
Redeveloping and re-electrifying Vietnam was a slow (and in some places still ongoing) process, but the newly formed Federal Republic and its young leadership energetically tackled the issues facing the nation with whatever resources could be obtained- progressively from farther and farther markets, until Vietnam found itself connected to a rudimentary global communications system. As early as 2037, however, differences in political culture and tradition between northern and southern Vietnam split the founding leadership, with an initial period of honeymoon cooperation slowly devolving into the more standard democratic political bickering. Both halves of the country (or at least their leadership) remained committed to the Federal Republic, however, and the nation today remains relatively un-partisan in its political environment, with more pressing issues, primarily sea level rise, encouraging the formation of at least informal cross-party agreements and coalitions. Kept from drifting into the Chinese sphere by historical and present conflicts, and keeping out of official Western partnerships out of geopolitical pragmatism, the relatively neutral Vietnam is today a prosperous social democracy, an outpost of stability and seeming normalcy amidst Southeast Asia, contrasting with the myriad statelets of the former Myanmar and the frozen three-sided civil war of Thailand; its economy is kept aloft by myriad industries, most notably traditional agriculture, aquaculture, fishing and tourism. Vietnam's lightless years have faded, and its democracy blooms out of the silt and mud of its long past to, hopefully, serve its people.
Overview WIP | Theme - Let Freedom Ring | Capital: Washington, D.C.
The United States of America disintegrated over the course of the 62 days following February 3rd, 2026. Although most lines of communication between America's population centers had been cut, some military bases and high-level government offices maintained constant radio contact with the federal government and military apparatus in Washington for a precious two months before even these lines, one way or another, ceased to function. The last reports sent to DC were grim; widespread looting and shortages of foodstuffs as well as an almost complete shutdown of centralized goods distribution plagued every large urban area in the United States, with smaller towns closer to farmland encountering their own problems in the form of infectious disease outbreaks, agricultural equipment failure and much, much more. Idaho dropped off the grid first, its last military transmission to Washington detailing the rise of a brutal white supremacist insurrection, and recording the location of a tactical retreat by the transmitting National Guard unit. Areas west of the Rocky Mountains, and thus essentially unreachable by messenger, soon followed, with major cities on the Californian coast and especially San Diego under martial law holding out contact the longest. One by one, the markers on the situation map in Washington were taken down, until only the Northeast megalopolis could be effectively governed. America's advancements, the digital technology that had made it the world's sole superpower, were thrown by the bag into landfills and onto the side of the road, inoperable, useless and derelict once the precious metals in their circuits were ripped out.
As federal authority collapsed across America, a power vacuum emerged, ready to be seized by any number of varying local governments and organizations stepping up to the plate. At best, these were rural communal councils and confederations, theoretically pooling limited resources, expertise and manpower for mutual benefit and defense; at worst, these were drug cartels, racketeering groups, extremist violent rebellions and isolationist cults. Both extremes and everything in between now had the opportunity to thrive or die in a disunited America, while the military administration in Washington struggled to defend its remaining authority. Some, such as the Pacific Provisional Government, grew into massive, thriving organizations with organized legislative, executive and judicial institutions- sovereign states in their own right; others collapsed into cesspools of stealing and war between those who just a few years ago were neighbors and countrymen.
By 2035, however, America was coming together again. The Washington military junta had reinstituted its legitimate control over much of the United States of America, graciously accepting organizations who welcomed its rule and declaring those statelets that resisted treasonous, errant children to be put down by the might of the United States Armed Forces. At this point in time, the United States Armed Forces could only just be called mighty, lacking the equipment and fuel supplies to conduct highly advanced warfare, but Washington put down the outliers anyway. Just as the military had decayed, so too had the government- over a year-long power struggle that drained resources from critical reconstruction efforts, the American military government had a change in leadership, creating the foundations of the Union Party and turning the already authoritarian emergency government into a nearly despotic unitary regime. What few legislators and politicians remained in Washington were installed as puppets of the UP in myriad civilian positions, slowly solidifying UP control over the government even as it made token promises of democratization and demilitarization. The banners of the new America blazed across the Great Plains, carving a path of destruction in their wake, and eventually arriving at a massive natural barrier- the Rocky Mountains. On the other side, border patrols of the Pacific Provisional Government just finished raising the Pacific flag over a newly constructed mountain outpost.
A nation reforming itself and a breakaway that was hostile to its ideology, mode of governance and historical actions could not coexist. Two models of governance, two nations, each powerful in their own right, clashed to determine who would rebuild the United States of America in the snowy mountains, sunbaked deserts and desolate roads of the Rockies- a Mountain War erupted, the only conventional, large-scale military conflict in the American reunification wars. Militiamen on both sides of the Rockies marched to the mountains, many never to be seen again, to fight and die against their own countrymen. By the time the Mountain War came to its close, both sides were exhausted, demoralized, and experiencing widespread equipment and fuel shortages- the towns of the Rockies were devastated by civil war. In the end, the Pacific lost- its fiery militias and perceived moral superiority could not overcome the war machines and the experience of the United States Army. The Pacific's ideology fled to Alaska, where its ideology persisted then in a Pacific government-in-exile and persists today in the Alaskan Federation. The Pacific's spirit, however, remained unbowed, and the Mountain War remains a sore spot and controversial topic in American politics today, especially for Pacific autonomists.
After three years of war, America, and especially the formerly relatively prosperous Pacific, lay in ruins, the cities of the west reduced to rubble and the foundries of the east strangled by a corrupt and inefficient war economy. The UP consolidated its sovereignty, destroying the last pockets of resistance to what was still technically the legitimate government of the United States of America, but making little substantial effort to revive the American national economy or project influence outwards- rather than investing into rebuilding America, its politicians were much more interested in plundering and working whatever was left for easy profit. The UP, bent on maintaining its control, began silently dismantling two and a half centuries of American democracy. The motivations driving its military leaders will never truly be known, as secretive as they were. The people's trust in American democracy and American power eroded, while the nation's place on the world stage was taken by China, the new sole superpower. For many, it seemed as if America was doomed to a silent, slow decline. This idea would be proven wrong in 2057 when, in the aftermath of successive natural disasters, catastrophic flooding of the Eastern Seaboard and a successive series of scandals and political defections, a leadership struggle in the Union Party caused it to utterly collapse, and for its grip on American politics to almost disappear, though its legacy and influence remains. Independent politicians, formerly suppressed and silenced, came out of the woodwork, and the nation had its first free election in decades in 2059. In said unprecedented federal quasi-snap elections, Oliver Teodor Serrano (IPP)'s Independent Progressive Party obtained a close majority in both houses of Congress and took the Presidency, with Serrano promising in his inauguration speech in February 2060 that America and its democracy were down and hurt, but not out, and that his country's pride would return. Whether Serrano can live up to his promises and haul America back from its despair and isolation remains to be seen, but perhaps a restoration of one of the world's oldest democracies warrants some optimism.
Overview WIP |
Theme - the People's Prince | Capital: Chiang MaiRotating through a series of authoritarian military administrations throughout the 2010s and 2020s, the Kingdom of Thailand was an unstable and fragile political organism even before the Storm descended to destroy humanity's future. When said Storm, known locally as Thotsakan's Rage, cut off Thailand from the world and practically destroyed its electric distribution system and most of its electronics, the nation fell into a brief chaos as a tourist-reliant formal economy collapsed and units of the Thai army struggled to communicate and enforce order. By June of 2026, however, the situation in Thailand had largely stabilized- through strict rationing, a brutal enforcement of martial law, a reliable system of rail and bike messengers, the Thai regime managed to keep a measure of control and stability across most of the country. Some regions, far from Bangkok, became effectively independent, however- the extreme south of the country came under the administration of Pattani rebels, while the north outside of major cities like Chiang Mai could not be effectively policed. For many years, life in Thailand was "normal"- no tourists or travelers could be seen in the country, and the Kingdom's manufacturing centers ground to a halt, but a large existing subsistence agriculture base allowed for adequate, if strictly rationed, food availability and provided poorly paid work to millions.
This economic semi-stability coincided with a seeming political semi-stability, as well- the protests, repeated coups and government brutality that had defined the 2020s for the Kingdom of Thailand had apparently ended, with the students and laborers preoccupied with feeding themselves and their families to care much about political activism. This was a surface-level calm, however, that deceived only the uninformed and the complacent- beneath the watchful eyes of Thai military enforcers, a myriad network of student movements, labor organizations, protest groups and individual people developed around the country; at the center of this growing network was Mahidol University, where illegal student gatherings were protected by sympathetic university staff. As Thailand's authoritarian regime continued to crack down on any form of unrest or disrespect for the monarchy, grumbles of unrest turned to tirades and speeches against the government, with even disgruntled soldiers and liberal military officers starting to take part. The Thai regime, unable to ignore rumors of growing unrest, dispatched a small Special Branch Bureau team to silently capture Professor Sakchai Aromdee, a prominent member of Thai academia; instead, Aromdee was shot and killed while fleeing from the SBB on a busy street in broad daylight. Despite the government's efforts, multiple recordings and witness accounts filtered out into the Thai population, inflaming the already sizzling unrest and turning Aromdee into a powerful martyr of the now united and hardened Thai Reform Movement. Opposition leaders soon began to coordinate a national campaign of initially nonviolent resistance, with brutal government police and military reprisals coming soon after- only strengthening and radicalizing the TRM. In a radio message sent out from Mahidol University's Salaya campus, an anonymous speaker laid out the movement's demands against the government- a massive scaling back of lèse-majesté laws, the resignation of the prime minister and many government officials, the unconditional release of opposition prisoners and the institution of a power-sharing government until free and fair elections could be held. An unknown Royal Thai Army officer, in a moment of what can only be described as extreme anger and stupidity, ordered his men to shell the university building the transmission originated from. Despite the central government quickly rescinding the order, over 100 people were killed; as news of the killings spread, peaceful protests turned to violent urban and rural battles. On the 3rd of November, 2034, the Thai War began.
In the first three days of the Thai War, just about a third of the Thai military's strength defected to the Thai opposition. The rebellion's strength was concentrated in the mountainous North, especially around Chiang Mai, certain urban districts and regions, such as the campuses of Mahidol University (all were resilient rebel enclaves), and the south of the country from Prachuap Khiri Khan to the border with Pattani and Malaya. While the rebellion held significant territory and had wide popular support (especially among younger people), the Thai government still commanded a majority of the Thai military and had the explicit blessing of King Dipangkorn/King Rama XII, giving it much more legitimacy in the eyes of common Thai. The low legitimacy of the rebellion would be mended, however, when on the 7th of November, the previously obscure 17-year-old second son of King Dipangkorn, Prince Kasem Charoensuk, announced over radio his intention to join the rebellion, declaring that the excesses of Rama XI and Rama XII had damaged the honor and nobility of the Thai monarchy. Styling himself- completely outside of royal procedure- Prince Regent Kasem of the Kingdom of Thailand, his remarkable speaking ability gave much-needed authority to the rebellion, and the former student, now Prince Regent, became the face of the Thai opposition; the Prince Regent even involved himself in the rebellion's military strategy, and developed a reputation for battlefield charisma.
Despite the impassioned speeches of Prince Regent Kasem and the fiery resistance of the Thai rebellion, the central government in Bangkok retained the loyalty of much of the Thai populace and received substantial material, economic and advisory aid from neighboring Cambodia and Myanmar, both similarly-minded authoritarian regimes. The TRM, on the other hand, received some support from the Red River Courts Union, today Vietnam, as well as training from ethnic and democratic rebel movements in eastern Myanmar. The rebellion fought hard, but often found itself simply outgunned against the Thai government's ability to wage mechanized warfare. The rebels were slowly pushed out of the cities, ironically moving into the rural and conservative countryside, where they fought in unconventional battles, utilizing their supply of fast-moving gun trucks and popularity among the local population to drain military morale and resources. Those who were captured by the government suffered harsh penalties, with summary execution often being the only option. By November of 2035, when the rainy season ended and the roads dried to allow for large-scale warfare, rebel central command had retreated to mountainous northern Thailand, where rough terrain conferred a significant defensive advantage against the Royal Thai Army. The other pocket of resistance, a large rebel army formation holding out in southern Thailand, had been cut off from Chiang Mai. Despite repeated expenditures of immense personnel and war materiel, the Thai government could not breach the rebel lines in northern Thailand, while fighters on the rebel side were similarly exhausted and demoralized by their retreat. Bangkok, seeking to repair its economy and partake in the fruits of the re-globalizing world, offered to negotiate a ceasefire with the rebel government in Chiang Mai- the leadership accepted, seeking a reprieve to rebuild its strength and manpower. On April 9th, 2036, a ceasefire was declared between the government Kingdom of Thailand and the rebel Kingdom of Thailand, with the southern rebellion following shortly after, evolving into the Republic of Thailand in 2039.
In the hopes of the Bangkok leadership, the ceasefire would cause the northern Thai Reform Movement to collapse, demoralized and exhausted. Far from this, however, Chiang Mai consolidated its militarized border with Bangkok, accepted nearly a million young migrants and refugees, and remained broadly united and cohesive under the symbol of the Prince Regent, who encouraged the state to develop into a true parliamentary constitutional monarchy, fusing the fiery young activism and resistance that had birthed it with a functional democracy. Despite frequent border skirmishes and small conflicts, as well as a constant propaganda war, the Thai War has never again since exploded into a full military conflict, with both sides (as well as the Republic of Thailand) settling into a very uneasy peace. Prince Regent Kasem, now a 35-year-old immunologist, remains the keeper of the "true" Thai throne and the guardian of the House of Mahidol, a new offshoot of the Chakri Dynasty claiming to uphold the legacy of Mahidol Adulyadej, the Prince Father. Based on this dynastic distinction, the Kingdom of Thailand in Chiang Mai is often called Thailand-Mahidol, while the Kingdom of Thailand in Bangkok is often called Thailand-Chakri. Compared to its enemy to the south, Thailand-Mahidol is a functional parliamentary democracy, with the beloved Prince Regent as its figurehead, strengthened by an exodus of educated and young people from Thailand-Chakri during and after the Thai War and possessing a large degree of popular support even in the rest of Thailand not under its control. Its small land area and relatively non-arable mountainous terrain are compensated for by a strong academic and service sector, with foreign businesses, even high-tech companies, preferring Chiang Mai's democracy and stability to Bangkok's harsh authoritarianism or Surat Thani's single-minded tourism focus and closeness to China. A rich hybrid culture of Lan Na and contemporary Thai elements draws tourists from around the world, especially those who are keen to avoid the corruption and stagnancy visible in Bangkok. Even though the Thai War is over for now, and the students that first fought for a better Thailand are now tired and aged, the spirit of resistance has not left the Kingdom of Thailand, and its people and Prince Regent know that one day, whether through fierce negotiation or bloody, ruthless war, the Kingdom of Thailand must be reborn.
Overview WIP | Theme - Abidjan Burns | Capital: Conakry
On August 10th, 2038, five presidents met in the Ivorian city of Abidjan to officially proclaim the West African Republic, the final result of a decade of close cooperation, trade and defense agreements between Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, and Ghana. These five republics, having been bruised and battered by the Storm and their loss of connection to the outside world, banded together in mutual aid and mutual defense, in a rare example of genuine international cooperation during the horrors of the Storm- intelligence-sharing, military exercises, internal trade and resource exchanges between the five nations were a major factor in ensuring none of them collapsed into complete disarray and chaos, like many of their close neighbors. For these five nations of West Africa, their lifelines to sanity were not new, insane ideologies, self-interested warlordism, popular revolution or the acceptance of death- they held on thanks to their brothers and sisters in Africa. Previously united by little beyond vague pan-Africanism, French or English as formal languages and a hatred for their long-gone colonial masters, the city of Abidjan became a hub for trade and diplomacy across the Storm-stricken towns and villages of coastal West Africa- in the inland, Burkina Faso collapsed into a civil war eventually ending in a Rationalist revolution, and the sub-Saharan states of Mauritania, Mali and Niger, already weakened by years of political instability and disastrous climate change, simply ceased to exist in any recognizable capacity.
WIP
