TheEvanCat

Our World in Turmoil: Revamped

Korea

Korea

The official flag of the Republic of Korea.



The “Unification Flag”, used alongside the ROK flag in former DPRK territories.

The Republic of Korea (Daehan Minguk – 대한민국)

Head of State - POTROK: President Na Tae-suk

Head of Government - PMOTROK*: Prime Minister Kwang Won-ha

* (PMOTROK is Deputy Head of Government - POTROK is the Formal Head of Government) *

History of Korea since 2020:

The Road to War

The economic boom in South Korea had catapulted the country to the world stage by the 2000s. As one of the “Four Asian Tigers”, South Korean companies sold products all over the world. Hyundai cars were common in international streets and Samsung electronics were ubiquitous all over the world. South Korea was guilty of its fair share of contribution to climate change: as of 2021, it was the ninth-largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world. While South Korean climate activists and government recognized this and set the country on a successful path to 100% clean energy generation by 2035, it had done its harm to the Earth as a whole.

South Korea continued its path upwards, the urbanization if its cities growing exponentially. Rapid technological and industrial advancements in South Korea were exported across the world. South Korean scientists and engineers worked tirelessly to create new technologies that adapted them to climate change. The 2020s were also marked by internal challenges as society changed and adapted to global norms. South Korean citizens found themselves discussing long-controversial topics in their country like LGBT recognition, abortion rights, chaebol workplace culture, sexual harassment, and similar social issues. Korean youths, now supplanting their elders in society and government, changed the country in ways that seemed alien to the conservative dictatorship of merely forty years prior.

In North Korea, a different picture emerged. Years of stagnation had crippled the hermit kingdom and the changing environmental conditions worsened the internal struggles. Unreported to the world at the time, North Korea had been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their refusal to accept outside assistance led to countless deaths as its inadequate medical facilities could never hope to stem the flow of new infections. Food insecurity worsened with the contraction of the North Korean economy and by 2022, the DPRK showed signs of famine not seen since the 1990s. Their refusal to accept international aid worsened the crisis.

The antagonistic missile tests and rhetoric continued, showcasing a “business as usual” approach to foreign policy from the North Koreans. But as the South Koreans picked up more defectors from across the Military Demarcation Line, their stories betrayed a deeply troubled country kept in line by an increasingly violent government. In 2026 and again in 2028, the South Koreans attempted to bring the Kim dynasty to the table for negotiations. They feared that an unstable and deteriorated North Korean state could unleash a humanitarian disaster or worse, armed conflict on the peninsula. Eventually, North Korea stopped responding to routine diplomatic calls. Even China, the North’s strongest ally, couldn’t bring Kim Jong-un to talks.

ROK and American intelligence saw the buildup of North Korean KPA forces in 2029. Consistent drought in the region had caused crop failures for three years: for North Korea, it was the final straw. Kim Jong-un was left with no opportunity but to wage war on the peninsula or fall to a rebellion amongst his own people. Battle positions were manned and formations were maneuvered in ways inconsistent with the usual military drills. Levels of alert slowly ramped up across the Korean peninsula over the summer. Inconsistent messaging and the dramatic shifting of KPA forces throughout the winter continued to confuse ROK intelligence analysts.

A Second War

The war began in the spring of 2030, as much of a surprise as it could have been for an age of constant drone and satellite surveillance. The withdrawal of three KPA divisions from the Military Demarcation Line a week prior had lured ROK forces into a false sense of security as alert levels dropped slightly. Using this opportunity at midnight on April 20th, 2030, the feared artillery of the KPA emerged from their hiding spots and erupted on the Seoul metropolitan areas. Despite the best effort of ROK and US military forces, the capital region was shattered by the bombardment.

Firing all throughout the day and night for 96 hours until their positions could be eliminated with counterfire, the KPA onslaught reduced large sections of the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area to rubble. 300,000 South Korean soldiers and civilians were killed. KPA forces, hiding in the elaborate trenches and tunnels across the borders, emerged from nowhere across the border to engage in close combat with the ROK and US Army. Divisions of soldiers fought and died, with KPA troops flooding into Korea’s urban centers to fight a brutal urban war. They began their advance as ROK forces withdrew from the front, destroying and disrupting infrastructure to stop their flow.

The North’s gamble ran into trouble as their military forces became stuck trying to clear obstacles and repair bridges that the South had destroyed in their wake. The natural terrain of Korea’s mountain passes rendered them sitting ducks for ROK and American artillery fire, with brigades of KPA tanks and vehicles combat ineffective in highways of death not seen since the Persian Gulf War. These mechanized forces were dispatched as they withdrew, seeking to avoid the carefully plotted South Korean kill zones. The obsolete North Korean tanks, however, were not the main problem on the ground.

North Korean light infantry had maneuvered through the mountains and entrenched themselves in Seoul’s dense suburbs. For months, South Korean forces fought in vicious hand-to-hand combat in complicated urban areas ranging from subway tunnels to high rises. Tens of thousands more Korean and American troops were killed or wounded as the stubborn North Koreans were rooted out block-by-block from the megacity region. In a culmination of a decade’s worth of warning, new technologies of war were unleashed upon the peninsula: drone swarms, chemical strikes, precision guided munitions, cyber attacks, and hypersonic missiles flew across the peninsula.

Despite the best effort of allied missile defenses, cities as far south as Busan and Daegu were struck by ballistic missile attacks. North Korean special forces and infiltrators ambushed logistics convoys and staging areas across the peninsula as the South deployed their own special operators to root out KPA sabotage. Yet through the arrival of American and other contingents of allied NATO and UN troops, the North was dislodged from its positions and forced back towards the 38th parallel. With the initial attack repulsed, the ROK and US were now able to maneuver to counterattack and destroy KPA weapon of mass destruction sites.

The ROK-US alliance gained ground by the fall of 2030 as it became apparent that the KPA was running out food, fuel, and ammunition. While chemical and biological weapons had been used against ROK forces, the Kim regime had thus far abstained from nuclear attacks. While nobody knows for certain, it was widely speculated that Kim Jong-un didn’t want to risk nuclear counterattack and a certain decapitation of the regime. Instead, the KPA fell back to Pyongyang for the final battle. One by one, the KPA nuclear facilities were destroyed or abandoned as military forces were ordered to fall back.

The final battle for Pyongyang was triggered upon ROK-US forces reaching the city’s perimeter by February of 2031. All the KPA’s divisions save two, stranded in the north of the country and harassed by incessant allied airpower, stood in extensively prepared defense positions as thousands of soldiers clashed once again. Every weapon in the North’s arsenal was fired as the desperate defenders fell to superior allied military power. South Korean tanks were in the streets of Pyongyang by March 3rd when the news came through that the Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un had died. Rumors of Kim's suicide or betrayal by other party members could never be substantiated by allied forces.

In any case, the North Korean resistance melted away by the 5t. Many threw down their arms and scattered from the oncoming forces. Those who surrendered were hastily sorted into enemy prisoner of war camps that tried to discern genuine prisoners from KPA special forces waging guerrilla actions. Special forces disappeared into the mountains alongside loyal KPA commanders: some of these conventional units would continue to fight for years after. The special forces, doggedly loyal to the Kim dynasty, sought to undermine the new Korean government. Many of the more hardline elements even refused to believe that Kim Jong-un was dead, instead searching the mountains of North Korea for other party elements to regroup with and restore him to the throne. These elite units and their leaders would be the subject of a manhunt from special-purpose ROK military headhunters for years to follow.

Aftermath

A formal end to the war was not declared until March 17th after the destruction of the last loyalist KPA units in the city who had either not received the news of Kim’s death or chose not to believe it. The Korean flag, the blue and red Taegukgi, was hoisted above the Juche tower. The ROK declared the Korean peninsula reunified on March 18th, with this day becoming a holiday in the years since. But this new phase was anything but cheerful: Korea, both north and south, had been decimated by a year of war that lived up to the predictions that it would be “nasty, brutish, and short.”

The Korean conflict had contributed to a simultaneous international financial depression as a confluence of climate disasters, wars, and energy crises racked the global system. This persisted until the year following the war, when global governments recognized that part of their recovery required aggressively investing to get Korea back up and running. With economists positing that a Korean recovery could help end this depression like the Second World War ended the first, a plan was put into action. A global effort by the warring parties to supply aid to the newly unified Korea was described by contemporary politicians as a “modern Marshall Plan.”

Through international grants and aid money, the Korean government stemmed its bleeding and triaged its most damaged sectors. Korean chaebols, industrial conglomerates, were still under martial law’s jurisdiction and received priority for repairs and manning. Soon enough, these companies started pumping capital and production into an economy, local and global, that sorely needed it. The Korean government’s massive reconstruction program put displaced civilians to work in government programs to rebuild their homes. In the north, a new phase of the conflict had begun as fresh troops rotated in from less-affected provinces in the south were ordered to conduct “stability operations.” This counterinsurgency would continue for the next decade.

By 2033, the Korean government restored its capital to Seoul, relocating it out emergency offices in Busan. Efforts to repair and redevelop the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area had begun during the war but were in full swing by this period of reconstruction. The Korean conflict, combined with the most recent Arab-Israeli war and other world conflicts, had spurred an appetite for peace and reconstruction in the global community. Historic amounts of international money poured into the Korean peninsula as the world economy recovered its footing by mid-2036, most notably from the United States. Military forces from the US remained in Korea, assisting with stability and security operations. They were instrumental to the initial stabilization of vital life support infrastructure.

Partner forces from across East Asia sent their own troops and civilians to deal with the Korean conflict’s aftermath. In a turning point for Japan-Korea relations, the Japanese military sent noncombat aid to the direct center of Seoul following the bombardment. The heroic exploits of Japanese doctors, search and rescuers, firefighters, explosive-ordnance experts, and others bridged a divide between the two countries and served as a foundation for continued dialogue. Others like the Taiwanese, Indonesians, Singaporeans, and Filipinos also served admirably: the contribution of East and Southeast Asian countries to the Korean conflict further swung opinion in Asia to a hypothesized future regional pact.

Martial law was ended in summer of 2036 when the imminent threat of disruption and collapse had passed. The move was praised by the UN as a new hope for a bright future in the region. Elections were held once again and the military stepped down to civilian authority. Efforts to integrate the former DPRK continued with the utmost priority, but it became obvious that the gulf would take many more years to bridge. To combat this, the ROK government enacted reforms to its conscription law in 2036 that diverted a percentage of draftees to a national service corps working to develop the northern provinces.

At the Yalu River, ROK forces dug in once again as they stared down a formidable Chinese presence to the north. While the Chinese had never interfered in the Korean conflict, the collapse of the Kim regime had worried them deeply. An American ally had now defeated its buffer and positioned forces directly at their land border. This border never would become as militarized and isolated as the MDL of the 38th parallel, but the relationship between Korea and China would become forever irreparable. To their south, sporadic clashes in the rugged badlands of northern Korea continued into the new decade.

Life in 2040 begins to look more normal for the Korean peninsula. The physical scars of war, although still being rehabilitated, are fading. Seoul has returned to its status as an international city of commerce and travel. Ordinary people have returned to ordinary jobs with the demobilization of segments of the ROK military. Asia and the rest of the world, however, are far from predictable. With an ongoing program of development in the north prioritizing money and manpower, the Koreans are now dealing with a world battling climate change and global instability as new conflicts. The Korean tiger, beaten and bruised by brutal war, has reemerged on the world stage.

Current Issues in Korea:

The Korean government’s domestic priorities remain rooted in the rebuilding and reintegration of former North Korea. The remnants of the DPRK’s failed command economy still produce rampant economic and societal instability in northern cities despite the trillions of won invested into repairing and developing infrastructure. While Pyongyang has been successfully integrated into the Korean economy, the ROK struggles to unify the country even almost a decade later. North Koreans, already at a disadvantage from their poor education and economic opportunities, are further discriminated against by southerners. While the government seeks to reintegrate northerners, there is still a clear national bias towards the south.

The conventional forces of the KPA were smashed or routed in the final stages of the war, but remnants of special operations forces and other loyalists to the Kim dynasty wage an insurgency in the rugged mountains of the north. ROK military forces still maintain an armed occupation in the north due while they hunt down and destroy the insurgency. Alarmingly, despite the success of the counter-weapons-of-mass-destruction campaign during the war, not all of these weapons have been accounted for: it is of the utmost importance for Korean military forces to track down these missing weapons before they proliferate elsewhere or are used again.

The wounds of war are still fresh amongst veterans and civilians alike, especially amongst citizens of Seoul. While most of the physical damage in the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area has been repaired, the Koreans are still dealing with catastrophic losses in both human and economic terms. The war killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more, many of whom are just now starting to resume normal lives. Korean society must process the national trauma of war and come to terms with its painful consequences on the peninsula.

Internationally, the challenges of an increasingly turbulent Pacific region require the Korean government to work alongside partner nations. While rapprochement with neighbors such as Japan and China has seen some progress, there is still friction when it comes to pursuing increasingly further intricate and tight-knit alliances. Despite this, the benefits to regionalism have become clear to an increasing majority of Korean politicians as international aid and trade are proving instrumental to Korea’s recovery from war. Some nationalist proponents remain, however, convinced that old adversaries are using new tools to take advantage of the Korean people once again.

Territories of Korea:

Following the capitulation of the DPRK, the ROK administers all of the Korean Peninsula up to the Yalu River bordering China.

Our World in Turmoil: Revamped

Korea is in the CS now.

N.E.O. - New Earth Oracle

Kourou, French Guyana

It began with the traffic. Expansions to the Centre Spatial Guyanais always did. Ships arriving at the port in Cayenne fifty kilometers down the river offloaded endless streams trucks, tractors, trailers, shipping containers, and heavy machinery. The N1 highway that ran southeast-to-northwest along the coast from Cayenne to Kourou, although expanded in 1982 to deal with the Armée de l’Air’s expansion of the CSG, was clogged with contractors and construction workers. The short-distance Guyanese rail line from Cayenne’s port to the CSG was constantly shuttling freight back and forth. Even the light people-mover was packed to the doors with workers in high-vis vests and hard hats.

The CSG had already been developed into a sprawling complex across the Guyanese coast. Kourou, a historical little town of colonial French pedigree, became the cantonment area for a system of headquarters and administrative buildings. Military forces from all branches maintained already significant presences there, as well as French scientific and space offices. The accompanying barracks rose from the dirt roads of old Legionnaire bases and Kourou itself had developed itself into a service town informally called Le Bourg. Anything a young soldier could want, Kourou had it: bars, clubs, restaurants, barbers, tailors, sex workers, and more. Respectable employees of the CSG lived in Cayenne, away from the raucous parties of the Bourg in Kourou.

Inside the perimeter, a multinational and interagency maze of offices presented a massive challenge for any one body to administer. Military units competed for motor pool space with civilian scientists who needed new laboratory structures, requiring a solution not unlike a miniature provincial government. CSG was split into several zones that were allocated to tenants of the facility. A compound was specifically designated for the French military and an OTAN international liaison facility on the west side of the facility adjacent to training areas cut into the jungle far beyond the paved roads of CSG’s main area.

Directly to the north of the military zone, an NLC control area had been established. Within the high-tech compound, Legionnaire patrols left and returned to Zone Rouge 10 with their artifacts in tow. Facilities decontaminated the personnel and their vehicles, examined and assessed their payloads, and rendered NLC artifacts safe for further processing in the scientific offices of CSG’s research component. The factory-like appearance of the control area towered over the jungle beside it, with another intricate system of decontamination washes and pits leading up to its automated motor pool offload area.

A Centre National d'Études Spatiales compound was the beating heart of the Centre Spatial Guyanais. Built out from the core launch pad that was established for the first French spaceflights in 1965, the CNES owned six rocket pads lined up neatly alongside the ocean. The Armée de l’Air owned another two dedicated exclusively to classified military launches. CNES, in cooperation with French companies and industry, had sponsored the creation of a vehicle assembly and manufacturing complex where spacecraft were assembled on site in massive factories before being moved to hangars to await launch. French space operations had achieved a capacity of mass production as the military and civilian sector clamored for space capability.

Born from CSG, the French network of information satellites was simply referred to as La Constellation. It was a constantly maintained mesh of communication, measurement, surveillance, navigation, and military satellites run out of the center. French vehicles, ships, and planes received directions and coordinates from the joint OTAN GALILEO global navigation satellites. Satellite phones and internet relays were run through the SÉMAPHORE COMSAT network. Intelligence observation satellites maintained constant eyes on adversaries that rivaled the Soviet Union’s capabilities. Rumors of anti-satellite and missile defense weapons were abound in the French media, although these were never directly addressed by the space authorities. Many of these hangars and command posts at CSG were classified.

More importantly, the French had launched a manned space station in 1974. From a simple laboratory in space, astronauts worked feverishly to mature the capabilities to live and work in zero-gravity. By 1981, the French government established a program to augment La Constellation and establish dominance in the newly-conceived doctrine of space warfare. Les Quais became the reference for France’s equally impressive collection of space stations that now numbered into the teens. From small manned laboratories to large cylindrical habitats providing Earth-like gravity and living conditions, Kourou was now charged with supporting a permanent presence in space.

As such, many of these launch facilities were designated for routine workhorse logistics operations. Rockets loaded with supplies and replacement crews constantly launched, docking hundreds of times a year to support France’s increasingly complicated system of orbital facilities. Alongside the CNES’s launch, maintenance, and production facilities was an equally impressive campus of training and personnel management buildings designed to efficiently prepare astronauts for their orbital rotations. After the collapse of Cape Canaveral into a red zone and the crippling of America’s space infrastructure, CSG now competed only with the Soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome.

While CNES maintained the largest civil component of the base, various other French research and government institutions had opened field offices at the CSG as it became more convenient to be closer to space-based experiments. Out of the jungle, trees along the coast were chopped away to build structures, sensors, industrial facilities, and laboratories. A true city of science had emerged within the last decade, and it was only getting bigger. The trucks and trains that clogged the N1 highway all headed into the northern portion of the facility where large gravel parking lots were flattened out to control the influx of traffic.

Construction fences quickly went up around a plot of land, with boards bearing the flag of the United Nations adorning the entry gate to the compound. “UNITED NATIONS INTERSTELLAR ENGINEERING FACILITY”, a clumsy name, was stenciled on the boards. The fences hid the fabrication of the facilities from view, but anyone could tell the construction workers were working fast. They worked through the day and changed shifts into a night lit up brilliantly by floodlights while the rest of the CSG clocked out at five in the afternoon. But the UN-funded overtime was paying off, and the contractors kept building all day and night through the heat of the South American jungle.

As the facilities came up for the official parties of the UN mission, more of their delegates flew into the towns of Kourou and Cayenne. They rented apartments with yearlong leases, opting to extend. For the property managers, it was a boon of income. But it betrayed their intent to stay: the UN compound was furnished with modern office buildings and high-tech conveniences. It was no mere temporary camp. Their personal automobiles clogged the N1 road with the rest of the contractors, and the French authorities were now discussing widening the highway again. The patios of the cafés on base were now filled with voices speaking foreign languages unusual for even the OTAN staff: Portuguese, Japanese, Hindi, and even Russian.

As the construction crews worked on the UN facility in the distance, the CSG continued its operation. The construction was paused only for launch windows, when all traffic lights on the base would flash red and indicate the motorists stop. Although much of the rocket propulsion was contained by massive concrete bowls that directed the force out and upwards, the CSG police, themselves a uniquely empowered arm of the French Gendarmerie, mandated everything stop for the ten minutes before and after a launch. But it was back to work as soon as the rocket cleared the facility’s airspace, so routine that most people barely paid the launches any notice.

All Adjutant d’Avout could think of when he pulled through the gate every morning or got through the crowded lines at the base exchange for lunch, was how much of a pain in the ass the influx of people had become. He could barely get a haircut without waiting an hour, not to mention find a spot to lift weights at the gym without two more people breathing over his shoulder. Most of all, the international civilians were the people who confused him the most: he knew what to do with a Legionnaire who was crowding the bench press, but not a Brazilian scientist.

So he commuted, day in and day out, handling his business at the Legionnaires’ barracks on the west side of the facility. He cursed the traffic and he cursed the lines. It was obvious, however, that the UN was there to stay: he’d better have to get used to it.

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation RP

Busan

The southern port city was never nearly as cold as the windswept, barren mountains of the north, but it still was enough to bother Ryu Kyung-jae on his walk to the workshop. He tightened the strap of his beige durumagi against the wind that now cut through the tiny cobblestone-paved alley and leaned forward as he marched through the elements.

Much had changed in his hometown in the last decade. The royals had let the Americans in, luring their investments with the offer of prime real estate at the strategic port. The government, in traditional Joseon fashion, had set up a bureaucratic office in the city in a marvelous new building to work the specifics of such complicated diplomacy.

Kyung-jae’s father worked there. A veteran administrator of internal trade and economics, he was tapped to spearhead the dynasty’s policy of reopening to the world. Even then, his father quickly became overwhelmed by the influx of American professionals who saw Korea as a vast new market. From the United States came teachers, architects, engineers, advisors, merchants, doctors, and even lawyers to try and translate their very alien Western ideals to the yangban and jungin who worked feverishly to understand.

The trade in Busan grew, and through Kyung-jae’s father’s connections, he met with many of these Americans. Over the years as a class of foreign expatriates grew in the city, Kyung-jae found himself swapping ideas with very talented inventors and engineers. Many of them now spoke Korean well, having found an appreciation for the culture.

More importantly, they found a way to make wild amounts of money selling things to Korean city and village rulers that were commonplace back home. Technologies for mass production, replaceable parts, and steam engines now filled brick factories churning out goods near the port of Busan. While the marvels of these intricate designs intrigued Kyung-jae, he never could shake the feeling of guilt that these new factories were displacing the traditional craftsmen of his hometown.

Kyung-jae arrived at his workshop, fumbling for the keys on a metal ring as his freezing fingers lost their fine motor skills. With great effort, he unlocked and pressed his way through the door into the stone structure. It was cold, but he undid his overcoat and hung it by the door.

In the corner on the wall was his coal furnace that provided heat for warmth and his inventing. A jury-rigged forge lay dormant next to it, nearby a table littered with parts and contraptions of brass and gears. Kyung-jae rubbed his hands together and started up the furnace quickly, seeking to warm his workshop and finally get some heat in the cold dark morning.

With his hands on his hips, Kyung-jae surveyed the workshop. Inside it were dozens of other aimless inventions, each a solution looking for a problem. As he waited for the furnace to warm the space, he searched for an inspiration. Maybe today would be something different, something useful.

Hanyang

Within the great complex of royal ministries in the capital Hanyang, two ministers sat cross legged on a cushioned floor with cups of steaming tea in their hands. The window offered a view into a snow-dusted garden occupying the center of one of the buildings. The Six Ministries, Yukjo, were the beating heart of Korea’s bureaucracy. Thousands of civil servants and administrators scurried throughout the compound to run an increasingly complicated system of government.

The two men, aged and stern, were the ministers of defense and commerce: Byeongjo and Gongjo. Yi Dong-il, Byeongjo minister, stroked his grey beard as he reread through a translated letter from Europe. It had arrived from the Austrians, of all people.

“Why does this matter?” sternly asked the old military man. He frowned. “We have railroads, why do they want to change the size now? What’s the point?”

The Gongjo minister, Chung Tae-suk, chuckled at the old general. He explained gently to Minister Yi, who often seemed frustrated with things he didn’t immediately understand: “It makes the tracks the same, it’s supposed to make things easier to get steam engines to different places. You build one the same every time and you never need to worry about the wheels fitting to the tracks.”

“The American trains seem to fit just fine,” protested Minister Yi. “It’s not like we’ll be building a railroad to Europe.”

With a wink, Minister Chung parried. “It’s about more than just us. What if the Americans change their measurements? Then we will, too. The expense of that will be less than the value of trade lost if we stay stubborn. Remember, this stubbornness is what let the Japanese outpace us.”

Minister Yi shook his head. He knew Minister Chung was right. The Joseon dynasty had been so preoccupied with isolation and maintaining their own affairs that they had shut out the outside world for almost forty years. Much had changed, especially with technology. He could barely comprehend it anymore. Minister Chung had always been an internationalist and had been spreading his wings ever since Queen Sinjeong had proclaimed that the Joseon isolation be lifted.

“We’ve always prided ourselves on education and precision,” Chung said to Yi. “With these new tools, we’ve been able to get more precise and learn more than ever before. You’ve heard Ijo before, we have been getting wiser to the world this entire time.”

Yi nodded. Ijo, the ministry of personnel, headed the entire direction of government through its placement, training, and selection of bureaucrats. Informally, the Ijo acted as the rudder for the government under Queen Sinjeong’s decisions. The traditional council that headed the Yukjo, the Ujeongbu, was often sidestepped by Ijo in their execution of the Queen’s intent.

Yi harrumphed, reluctantly conceding to Chung. “I suppose this requires me to say yes to attending, owing to the military usage of these railroads.”

“Of course,” Chung replied. The Yukjo followed a hierarchy like anything else in the Joseon government. Byeongjo held seniority over Gongjo. Both were subordinate to Yejo, the ministry of rites that contained foreign diplomacy within its list of responsibilities. Before arguing their case to Minister Rhee Nam-hee and, ultimately, Queen Sinjeong herself, both of them would need to solidify their agreement on attending the conference.

“Alright,” said Yi. With a hint of disdain for the banality of the issue, he agreed. “I suppose we should fall in line. If the world moves on without us, that just leaves us vulnerable. That’s not what I desire. Let’s prepare for this… conference about railroad measurements.”

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation RP

Korea

Government

Name: Great Joseon State (대조선국) - Joseon Dynasty of Korea

Flag/Badge: The Royal Standard of the King of Joseon

Head of State: King Heonjong

Head of Government: Queen Sinjeong (Grandmother of King Heongjong)

Ideology: Korean Confucianism (Absolute Monarchy)

Military

Army Numbers: 75,000 members of the standing army. In wartime, a significant pool of volunteers and irregulars is drawn from the Korean tradition of uibyeong - “Righteous Army.”

Navy Numbers: The contemporary Joseon dynasty maintains no significant naval forces, save for a robust system of coastal defenses.

Army Equipment: Line soldiers are equipped with metallic brigandine armor in the style of martial hanbok. Unique to the Joseon dynasty, experimental bulletproof soft armor - myeonji baegap - is fielded to some troops to protect against new firearm developments. Joseon firearms are referred to as chongtong and are a fusion of traditional Korean weaponry with modern advancements. Joseon troops utilize rockets, cannon, mortars, and handheld muskets. Rifles are rare, as Joseon doctrine adapts to modern developments of Western militaries.

Naval Ship Types: Naval theory and posited modernization programs center on historical doctrine, deriving heavily from the pairing of the geobukseon “turtle ship” and the panokseon warship.

History, Expansion, and Economics

History: The Joseon dynasty emerged from almost two centuries of peace and prosperity at the turn of the 19th century. In the 18th century, kings Yeongjo and Jeongjo maintained a delicate balance between the warring factions of the Korean peninsula. This policy of tangpyeongchaek resulted in the solidification of the Joseon dynasty’s power and rule over the Koreans. However, with the death of King Jeongjo, the Joseon dynasty began a significant decline with the rule of the “in-law” families. These rulers were ineffective: the resulting corruption and mismanagement sent thousands of Koreans into poverty. Korea became a “hermit kingdom”, increasingly isolationist and unwilling to communicate outside its borders.

The 1830s were increasingly complicated in the Joseon political sphere. Illnesses, regents, and shifts of power were commonplace as the Joseon dynasty struggled to survive a turbulent period. By 1840, the Joseon dynasty was ruled by the thirteen-year-old King Heongjong through the regency of his grandmother, Queen Sinjeong. Despite reaching adulthood, Queen Sinjeong refused to give up her regency due to the supposed incompetency of Heongjong. Kept satisfied with a good life in the capital of Hanseong, King Heongjong kept a low profile from politics and instead utilized his nature as a royal to live a life of vice and playfulness.

Queen Sinjeong, however, dealt with the increasing pressures of being surrounded by the Qing and the Japanese. With the dysfunction of her government rampant at every level, she sought to bail out a sinking ship. The Confucian ideals of bureaucracy had been tainted by clans, bribes, and all manner of impropriety. Despite this, there was no significant effort to improve the Joseon regime until 1844 when news of a revolution reached the Joseon palaces. The Shogun, who had left the Korean peninsula alone for decades, had been overthrown by an aggressive and assertive imperialist regime.

That summer, after the rise of Shogun Kumiko, an advisor to Queen Sinjeong voiced his grievances during a routine meeting. The advisor, a wise elderly veteran of Joseon politics, reportedly stood up to Queen Sinjeong and called her a fool in front of the court for continuing the status quo. In an impassioned speech, the advisor laid out the threats posed to the Korean people by the Japanese. He evoked the Imjin Wars that the Joseon dynasty had fought in the last decade of the 16th century, and argued that a new invasion was imminent if they were allowed to advance uncontested.

Normally, such impropriety towards the royal system would not be tolerated. But Queen Sinjeong pondered her advisor’s words and, after many days of thinking and consultation, the regent of the Joseon dynasty agreed to follow suit and prepare her country for the impending threat of the Japanese, Chinese, and Russians. Reactively, she sent her bureaucrats to find a solution to the rapidly modernizing threat of the Japanese across the East Sea. Their answer to her: send a diplomatic delegation to the United States across the ocean. Queen Sinjeong, after careful thinking, agreed.

The Korean party came ashore to the Americas after a long voyage. Outside of Oregon, the Korean diplomatic element landed outside a settlement and asked to speak to the country’s leader. Through a highly charismatic and specially selected diplomat who had learned English from the British, the Korean-American Friendship Party traveled across the United States to Washington, where the group of “exotic Oriental” diplomats were granted a special session with President Clay to voice their message. This meeting resulted in the historic pact between the Joseon dynasty and the United States, where the Koreans became the first significant overseas partners of America.

Until 1847, the Koreans received a significant amount of technological aid and investment from the Americans. Businesses and the government utilized Korea as a foundation to export their products, with the aim of defeating the Japanese and Russians across the sea. Korea, meanwhile, continued its modernization and professionalization of government and military. Queen Sinjeong, her view changed by the sudden encounter with an advisor, heavily utilized her bureaucrats to bring the Joseon dynasty back to the professional Confucian ways. It was now her responsibility to merge Western modernization with Eastern ideals.

Korea, through its vast investment in help from America, seeks to modernize and improve itself in the face of a Japanese threat. With the threat of the Imperial Japanese Revolutionary Army just across the East Sea, the Koreans struggle to build themselves into a power that can resist yet another incursion upon their homeland. While the political and societal ramifications of this rapid change remain uncertain, Queen Sinjeong remains steadfastly dedicated to the preservation of Joseon Korea. American culture and ideas seep into the country, seeding the classes of people who may oppose the absolutism of the monarchy. As a new year in 1448 dawns, Korea and Japan have reemerged; they are rearmed, renewed, and ready.

Territory: The Joseon dynasty controls the Korean peninsula up to the Amrok (Yalu) River bordering China.

Economic Description: The Korean economy is highly regional. Much of southern Korea is agricultural, where farms and rice paddies dominate the countryside. Northern Korea, especially in the mountainous and cold central regions, has a wealth of mineral deposits and mines. The coasts and rivers are a source of seafood and maritime trade. Cities in Korea represent the centers of economic development and trade. Hanseong (modern day Seoul) is Joseon Korea's political and governmental center of gravity. Pyongyang to the north benefits significantly from the north's mines, rapidly becoming a center of Western-style industry. Busan, to the south, is perhaps the most heavily Westernized city in Korea owing to its port facilities importing American and European trade.

Historical Claims: There are no official external territorial claims north of the Amrok River. It is the longest-standing international border in history, with over 800 years separating China and Korea. However, certain highly nationalist members of the Korean court maintain irredentist ideologies ranging in intensity. Some wish to take territory in Qing China where ethnic Koreans live, while the most extreme advisors advocate for full restoration of the ancient Goguryeo dynasty's frontier.

Dark purple represents the current Joseon borders on the Korean peninsula. Light purple represents the extent of ethnic Korean communities within Qing China. Pale pink is the largest northward expansion of the fourth-century Goguryeo dynasty.

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

Government

Name: Great Joseon State (대조선국) - Joseon Dynasty of Korea

Flag/Badge: Still tbd until I find a historically accurate standard of the contemporary Joseon dynasty

Head of State: King Heonjong

Head of Government: Queen Sinjeong (Grandmother of King Heongjong)

Ideology: Korean Confucianism (Absolute Monarchy)

Military

Army Numbers: 75,000 members of the standing army. In wartime, a significant pool of volunteers and irregulars is drawn from the Korean tradition of uibyeong - “Righteous Army.”

Navy Numbers: The contemporary Joseon dynasty maintains no significant naval forces, save for a robust system of coastal defenses.

Army Equipment: Line soldiers are equipped with metallic brigandine armor in the style of martial hanbok. Unique to the Joseon dynasty, experimental bulletproof soft armor - myeonji baegap - is fielded to some troops to protect against new firearm developments. Joseon firearms are referred to as chongtong and are a fusion of traditional Korean weaponry with modern advancements. Joseon troops utilize rockets, cannon, mortars, and handheld muskets. Rifles are rare, as Joseon doctrine adapts to modern developments of Western militaries.

Naval Ship Types: Naval theory and posited modernization programs center on historical doctrine, deriving heavily from the pairing of the geobukseon “turtle ship” and the panokseon warship.

History, Expansion, and Economics

History: The Joseon dynasty emerged from almost two centuries of peace and prosperity at the turn of the 19th century. In the 18th century, kings Yeongjo and Jeongjo maintained a delicate balance between the warring factions of the Korean peninsula. This policy of tangpyeongchaek resulted in the solidification of the Joseon dynasty’s power and rule over the Koreans. However, with the death of King Jeongjo, the Joseon dynasty began a significant decline with the rule of the “in-law” families. These rulers were ineffective: the resulting corruption and mismanagement sent thousands of Koreans into poverty. Korea became a “hermit kingdom”, increasingly isolationist and unwilling to communicate outside its borders.

The 1830s were increasingly complicated in the Joseon political sphere. Illnesses, regents, and shifts of power were commonplace as the Joseon dynasty struggled to survive a turbulent period. By 1840, the Joseon dynasty was ruled by the thirteen-year-old King Heongjong through the regency of his grandmother, Queen Sinjeong. Despite reaching adulthood, Queen Sinjeong refused to give up her regency due to the supposed incompetency of Heongjong. Kept satisfied with a good life in the capital of Hanseong, King Heongjong kept a low profile from politics and instead utilized his nature as a royal to live a life of vice and playfulness.

Queen Sinjeong, however, dealt with the increasing pressures of being surrounded by the Qing and the Japanese. With the dysfunction of her government rampant at every level, she sought to bail out a sinking ship. The Confucian ideals of bureaucracy had been tainted by clans, bribes, and all manner of impropriety. Despite this, there was no significant effort to improve the Joseon regime until 1844 when news of a revolution reached the Joseon palaces. The Shogun, who had left the Korean peninsula alone for decades, had been overthrown by an aggressive and assertive imperialist regime.

That summer, after the rise of Shogun Kumiko, an advisor to Queen Sinjeong voiced his grievances during a routine meeting. The advisor, a wise elderly veteran of Joseon politics, reportedly stood up to Queen Sinjeong and called her a fool in front of the court for continuing the status quo. In an impassioned speech, the advisor laid out the threats posed to the Korean people by the Japanese. He evoked the Imjin Wars that the Joseon dynasty had fought in the last decade of the 16th century, and argued that a new invasion was imminent if they were allowed to advance uncontested.

Normally, such impropriety towards the royal system would not be tolerated. But Queen Sinjeong pondered her advisor’s words and, after many days of thinking and consultation, the regent of the Joseon dynasty agreed to follow suit and prepare her country for the impending threat of the Japanese, Chinese, and Russians. Reactively, she sent her bureaucrats to find a solution to the rapidly modernizing threat of the Japanese across the East Sea. Their answer to her: send a diplomatic delegation to the United States across the ocean. Queen Sinjeong, after careful thinking, agreed.

The Korean party came ashore to the Americas after a long voyage. Outside of Oregon, the Korean diplomatic element landed outside a settlement and asked to speak to the country’s leader. Through a highly charismatic and specially selected diplomat who had learned English from the British, the Korean-American Friendship Party traveled across the United States to Washington, where the group of “exotic Oriental” diplomats were granted a special session with President Clay to voice their message. This meeting resulted in the historic pact between the Joseon dynasty and the United States, where the Koreans became the first significant overseas partners of America.

Until 1847, the Koreans received a significant amount of technological aid and investment from the Americans. Businesses and the government utilized Korea as a foundation to export their products, with the aim of defeating the Japanese and Russians across the sea. Korea, meanwhile, continued its modernization and professionalization of government and military. Queen Sinjeong, her view changed by the sudden encounter with an advisor, heavily utilized her bureaucrats to bring the Joseon dynasty back to the professional Confucian ways. It was now her responsibility to merge Western modernization with Eastern ideals.

Korea, through its vast investment in help from America, seeks to modernize and improve itself in the face of a Japanese threat. With the threat of the Imperial Japanese Revolutionary Army just across the East Sea, the Koreans struggle to build themselves into a power that can resist yet another incursion upon their homeland. While the political and societal ramifications of this rapid change remain uncertain, Queen Sinjeong remains steadfastly dedicated to the preservation of Joseon Korea. American culture and ideas seep into the country, seeding the classes of people who may oppose the absolutism of the monarchy. As a new year in 1448 dawns, Korea and Japan have reemerged; they are rearmed, renewed, and ready.

Territory: The Joseon dynasty controls the Korean peninsula up to the Amrok (Yalu) River bordering China.

Economic Description: Will elaborate later.

Historical Claims: There are no external territorial claims north of the Amrok River. It is the longest-standing international border in history, with over 800 years separating China and Korea.

Precipice Of War: The Reboot of a Reboot

The Caribbean Sea
August, 1955

Captain Pulido’s change of mission came as a wireless telegram delivered to the cabin at eight in the morning as he emerged on deck with a freshly steaming cup of coffee. It had been delivered two hours or so earlier and decrypted by the ship’s intelligence and encryption desk using a curious electromechanical rotor cipher machine. The machines, utilized on both ends of a morse code or other radio network, encrypted messages into a cipher text and allowed free transmission of secret messages: any interceptor would merely see a jumbled alphabet nonsense. Its settings had switched over at six in the morning in compliance with the rule that the rotors be wired strictly according to codebooks distributed before patrols: the message came in full no more than five minutes later.

Captain Pulido put his mug down on a ledge by the ship’s wheel, studying the printout. It came directly down the chain from the Comando del Teatro Atlántico, or the Navy’s Atlantic command. He raised an eyebrow at the message. Of course, he had been privy to high-level indications of these preparations, but the course of action seemed to have jumped the gun on their supposed timeline.

COMMANDING, ARM MATADOR, ARM HERNANDEZ, ARM GIRASOL, ARM MADRESELVA, ARM MARAVILLA

TORMENTA/TORMENTA/TORMENTA

1) OPERATION PLAN REY GRANDE IS ACTIVATED. ALL UNITED KINGDOM NAVY FORCES ARE TO BE CONSIDERED HOSTILE.

2) IDENTIFIED VESSELS ARE DESIGNATED BASED ON CURRENT GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION AS WARTIME TASK FORCE 11.

3) DIRECTED MISSION RETASKS CURRENT PATROL TO INTERCEPT AND DESTROY MERCHANT MARINE VESSELS IN VICINITY OF: LATITUDE 17.58, LONGITUDE -75.99.

3.A) ALL VESSELS WILL IMMEDIATELY RENDEZVOUS IN VICINITY OF: LATITUDE 19.11, LONGITUDE -78.16.

3.B) ENEMY FLEET COMPOSITION: 3 PATROL BOATS, 1 CORVETTE, 6 CIVILIAN MERCHANT MARINE VESSELS (TONNAGE UNKNOWN.) ANNEX A CONTAINS INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS OF LIKELY VESSEL CLASS.

3.C) ENEMY FLEET DISPOSITION: RECONNAISANCE SEAPLANE IDENTIFIES FORMATION STEAMING EASTWARD HEADING ESTIMATED 70 DEGREES, 10 KNOTS. WARSHIPS ARRAYED TO NORTH/WEST IN DEFENSIVE ESCORT POSTURE. ANNEX B CONTAINS NAUTICAL NAVIGATION TECHNICAL SPECIFICS.

4) ARM MATADOR ASSUMES COMMAND OF TASK FORCE 11. ANNEX C CONTAINS COMMUNICATION SPECIFICS FOR TASK FORCE 11.

TORMENTA/TORMENTA/TORMENTA

NAVAL OPERATIONS
ATLANTIC THEATER COMMAND

Pulido sat down in his padded chair, reexamining the message. He had ordered Teniente Fuentes to retrieve a copy of Operation Plan Rey Grande from the classified vault so that he could refresh himself on the specifics of the plan. The current roster of ships assigned to his new task force were all small patrol vessels, with the Hernandez being the only speedy corvette of the group. The Matador by far had the strongest and longest-ranged firepower of the group: the patrol boats would have to be used for mopping up and commerce raiding after Pulido and the Hernandez had dispatched the British ships that were tasked to him.

He gave his order quickly, having the helmsman turn towards the identified rendezvous point. Their new course was charted and they took the rest of the day at full speed to head to the area. Atlantic Command’s meeting point for Task Force 11 positioned them squarely to the northwest of Jamaica, almost forty nautical miles north of Montego Bay. The Matador circled as, one by one, the Mexican ships assembled. The Hernandez, being the fastest, was the first to arrive on scene around midmorning. She hailed the Matador on radio, flying her signal flags to indicate her friendly disposition.

Two of the patrol vessels arrived later that afternoon as the pair circled the point. The last one, the Maravilla steaming in from a further patrol point around Cancún, came into formation by the evening. Pulido, with each of the ships’ skippers, confirmed their mission and ordered Task Force 11 to steam eastward as fast as they could go. This turned out to be the maximum speed of the patrol vessels, who simply could not go as fast as the Hernandez or even the Matador. Pulido checked his watch on the ship’s bridge and frowned. The patrol boats were making their best effort, but he was worried they’d be late to their interdiction location.

His navigator, another Lieutenant junior to Fuentes, was drawing a course in a grease pencil across a depth chart. His push-pins, now colored yellow to indicate their new mission, denoted the Matador’s abrupt shift of travel around the western coast of Cuba. A crudely drawn Union Jack was pinned to the map with an arrow denoting their path of travel. He updated the map whenever they received reconnaissance information or extrapolated their position based on speed and heading in the absence of the Navy’s seaplane flights. For hours, they puttered through the seas until, in the dusk, a lookout noticed the telltale silhouettes of ships on the horizon.

The watch officer called up to Captain Pulido: “Sir, we have a grouping similar in size to our target on the heading.”

Captain Pulido raised an eyebrow and looked around the bridge. He had been here for hours, only taking naps in his cabin between extended shifts on deck. “What do you mean, similar size?”

“Well sir, it appears to be slightly bigger. One or two ships more than anticipated.”

“How large are they?”

“It’s too hard to tell, sir,” the watch officer explained. “In these conditions, we can’t tell until we get close. It may just be another merchant ship that jointed the pack. But if we hurry, we can get to weapons range.”

Pulido nodded and thanked the watch officer. He hung up the phone and turned to his signal officer on the bridge. The young man fumbled for his pen and paper, quickly jotting down the commander’s request to signal the Hernandez. With signal lights, the Matador relayed the message and quickly got the commander of the corvette on a radio channel. Captain Ronaldo Sandia greeted Pulido cheerfully.

“You see them, Rafael?” he asked in a chipper tone. “We finally caught up to the bastards, these patrol boats be damned.”

“Yeah, yeah, I see them,” Pulido replied. He looked through his window where the silhouettes appeared as tiny specks against the orange horizon. “But we’re running out of daylight and I don’t want to engage at night. Worse yet, the lookout reports that there’s another ship in the pack.”

“Another ship?” said Sandia quizzically. “We haven’t seen that. Maybe it’s another freighter that got mixed in with the group.”

“That’s what the lookout suspects,” confirmed Pulido. He shrugged. “I fear we may be going too far out of our support network if we wait. I say we speed up to engage. Let the patrol boats catch up as we start shelling them from our maximum ranges. They can maneuver past us and pick off the wounded with their torpedoes.”

It was risky, but the Matador and and the Hernandez had actual cannons. The Matador boasted the heaviest armor and weapons, although not by much: the frigate could attack with two high-velocity cannons at the fore and aft, while the Hernandez needed to get a little closer to utilize its single medium-velocity cannon to hit more vulnerable parts of an enemy superstructure. The patrol ships had direct-attack capabilities in the form of a system of quad-barrel forty-millimeter automatic cannons but was far more deadly up close with its deck-mounted torpedo launchers. The two ships-of-the-line would need to cover the trio of patrol ships as they approached to finish off damaged and slowed vessels.

Captain Sandia agreed to the plan, which was quickly relayed by the signalers to the whole formation of Task Force 11. The Matador and Hernandez, upon receiving confirmation from the patrol ships to alter their course, turned their boilers up to unleash the maximum amount of power to the propulsion systems. The propellers churned up water, splashing a huge wake in the glimmering sea. The Matador had swung its guns to the enemy formation and waited. Mexican sailors rushed about the ship to attend their battle stations in flak jackets and steel helmets as an alarm blared general quarters. All lights on the ship had been shut off, with the red low-visibility lights taking their place.

Captain Pulido, steely eyed and gazing towards the first real ship to ship combat of his career, could hardly think of anything else. But for a split second, he realized something: he should probably give a speech while he still could. Finding the microphone to the intercom, he cleared his throat and addressed the crew as stoically as he could:

“Men, we are about to engage the enemy in defense of Mexico for the first time since our revolution. Like our forefathers who fought for liberation against the Spanish, French, and Americans, I know that our spirit will prevail. I trust that everyone will do his duty and I know that you are all well trained for the task ahead. Keep your heads down and your job in mind. Prepare for combat.”

He hung up his microphone with a static click as the bridge remained dead silent. For another twenty agonizing minutes, the only sound was the rushing of the ship as it cut through the sea towards their adversaries. The clock struck seven in the evening, and the weapons officer declared that they were inside of the maximum effective range of their cannons. Not that it mattered much, as the first few rounds at maximum range were bound to miss. Within three minutes, the crew had loaded a shell from the ship’s magazine and stabilized on what appeared to be a warship in the distance. Captain Pulido gave the order to fire.

With a roar, the front cannon on the Matador opened up with a burst of flame ejecting from the barrel. The whole ship shook from the blast of the cannon as the crew waited with anticipation. The first shot of the naval conflict had been fired. Through binoculars, a spotter observed the round splash down in the sea a minute later. It had been a miss. He shouted commands to the rest of the crew nearby to adjust their fire. Deep within the ship, in the plotting room, the data was relayed via intercom and the gunnery crew initiated a complicated dance with their electromechanical rangekeeper computer. The crude analog device’s rotors spun and whirred until a printout gave gun corrections to the gun chief.

Within a minute, the corrections had been made by the gunnery team in a cramped and sweaty control room, frantically spinning wheels to adjust the elevation and azimuth. Captain Pulido received confirmation on the bridge that the ship was ready to fire again and he ordered a second shot towards the British pack. In the distance, a few nautical miles ahead, the Hernandez had taken the lead and was now within range of its own smaller cannon. Distant thumps, more rapid-fire than the Matador’s own gun, emanated from the corvette as Captain Sandia ordered a rapid fire saturation gunnery of the tightly-packed British fleet.

By the time the third shot had left the gun, the Matador had splashed consistently up to the enemy fleet and was edging in on a hit. But the lookouts spotted the ships breaking formation, one at first but then joined by two others that now appeared to be patrol ships much like Task Force 11. A fourth, the corvette, followed suit and rushed towards the Hernandez. The rest of them continued their heading, more than likely the merchant vessels. Captain Pulido gave the order to fire at will at the ships who chose to stay and fight. Task Force 11’s own patrol ships broke formation to circle around and close in under the cover of the frigate and corvette’s guns.

“Rafael!” crackled the radio. It was Captain Sandia. “We see the enemy corvette heading right for us! I think it wants to fight. We’re going to focus our fire on it before they can target. I’m turning head on.”

Pulido acknowledged and watched through his own binoculars as the Hernandez fired off a round and spun quickly to charge the British corvette. Two ships of equal size, with mostly equal weaponry, were now playing a game of chicken with each other. The Hernandez presented itself with as small a profile as possible as its main gun continued firing in rapid bursts. After another two shots, Captain Sandia scored the first hit of the fight: a small cannon shell hit the foredeck of the British corvette and exploded. The round did little damage and didn’t knock out the British cannon, which fired a return shot. This near miss splashed up water next to the Hernandez.

Pulido kept firing, the Matador gunning closer and closer to the British corvette. He had closed in to an acceptable range during his charge, and now felt it appropriate to swing the ship to port and get his neglected rear cannon into action. The Matador, under the heavy hand of her helmsman, leaned dramatically to the side as it sought to bring her rear gun to bear hurriedly. The weapons officer finally received confirmation of a firing solution from the aft gun and Captain Pulido ordered it into action.

Two guns off the Matador erupted, sending high-explosive rounds rippling through the evening sky. They arced over the waves before finding their target. Both of them, somehow, impacted simultaneously on the British corvette’s super structure. Beneath its tripod mast and observation next, bright orange explosions lit up the sky and reflected across the dark blue Caribbean waters. Someone in the bridge shouted “good hit!” and Captain Pulido examined the impact of the shells through his binoculars. The corvette’s superstructure appeared mangled and burned, metal warped and darkened by the flash fires that were now starting in the bridge area.

“Repeat that!” he shouted to the weapon officer in uncharacteristic excitement. His heart was pounding through his chest and his hands trembled on the grips of his binoculars. Another roar of cannon fire rippled through the Matador, but these disappointingly fell short.

Over the radio, Captain Sandia reported in: “Good hit on that corvette’s bridge, Rafael. We can take it from here.”

“I got it, Ron, we’re going to shift fire to the patrol boats.”

With that, the Hernandez belched flame from its medium cannon. A dozen agonizing seconds later, that too found itself hitting the wounded British corvette. The Matador had already been given the order to focus one cannon on a patrol boat to engage two targets at once, but Pulido still watched the British corvette with morbid curiosity. Sandia’s gunfire had ignited a fire on the deck in front of the superstructure, perilously close to the corvette’s gun. In the light, he could now see the specks of British sailors running across the deck in panic. Its cannon fired one more time, sending a return shot towards its aggressor.

It may have been bad luck, or good training, or punishment for past sins committed, but the British corvette’s cannon fire seemed to go straight into the bridge of the Hernandez. It was textbook: the round practically went through the glass windows of the Mexican corvette and exploded inside, sending channels of flame rushing out through every opening on the bridge. Pulido’s knuckles went white as he realized that Captain Sandia, probably flamboyantly commanding fire from the bridge just like he was, had perished instantly. There was no response to radio hails. But Captain Sandia had his revenge on the way, as a moment before the British hit his vessel a repeat shot had been sent towards the enemy.

This one, just as luckily, buried itself into the deck where its previous impact had blown open a hole in the plating. Instantly, the British corvette’s front gun magazine was hit by the impact and exploded into a massive cloud of flame and smoke. The ship rocked, shaken by the explosion, and began diving bow into the waves. Beneath the smoke and dust, Pulido could see that a large gash was taking on obscene amounts of water. Sailors jumped from the gunwales of the vessel into the water and began swimming away. The Matador, still firing at the patrol boats, was unfazed even if Captain Pulido thought of the mutual suicide he had just witnessed.

Silently moving through to the south of the enemy pack, the Mexican patrol vessels had reached torpedo range of what appeared to be two merchant ships trailing the end of the convoy. Like wolves to a pack of sheep, the patrol ships settled into a formation and sped up to engage. Each of them swiveled their mounted torpedo launchers to the chosen victim and fired. The pneumatic tubes forced a torpedo off the deck and into the water, where the propeller was activated. Their tiny engines produced enough speed to ensure that the projectile was twice as fast as the British merchant ships, and they sped towards their targets. Unlike long-range naval gunfire, these torpedoes were deadly accurate.

One, then another, then a third torpedo found their first target. A coordinated attack on a single merchant ship sent the trio of explosions rippling across its keel on the port side. While the patrol ships reloaded their torpedo launchers and slinked away for another attack, the Girasol reported to the Matador that one of the merchant vessels was listing and taking on water. A quick kill, hopefully to be repeated on another target. Within fifteen minutes, they had reloaded and zeroed in on a second merchant ship where they repeated the process. Only two torpedoes found their target this time, but this was enough. The stern of the ship was torn to shreds, the merchant ship’s bow slowly raising into the air as it took on water to its aft.

But as the Matador dueled with the speedy British patrol boats, a ship emerged from the shadows of the pack heading straight for the patrol ships. It was a frigate, just like the Matador. The mystery vessel had been another warship all along, obscured by the merchant fleet until it was too late. The Girasol, after scoring its second kill of the night, was the British frigate’s first target. A heavy gun unleashed at close range on the much smaller patrol ship, detonating across the foredeck to deadly effect. It didn’t take long before the Girasol was as dead as the merchant ships it had just torpedoed. Unceremoniously, the two surviving patrol ships immediately turned tail and ran before the British frigate could target them at point blank range as well.

Pulido could hear the patrol vessels panicking over the radio as they aborted their mission to save themselves. Better to let the merchant freighters go than to commit suicide by frigate. Pulido’s guns had scored an important victory on one of the British patrol boats, hitting its stern and rendering it dead in the water while its two partners continued to rush forwards.

“We need help over here!” the commander of the Madreselva shouted.

So the Matador turned towards the British frigate, in direct opposition to any sort of common sense. The naval crossing of the tee, which had a ship bring all its guns to bear against a perpendicular enemy, was considered the epitome of a textbook attack. Captain Pulido, seeking to maximize the element of surprise while the British ship was busy taking care of the patrol vessels, was now at the wrong end of the tee. He ordered the Matador to fire, its gun crew having acquired a firing solution on the slow-moving frigate. This one hit, partially due to the larger size of the enemy vessel compared to the corvette, and battle damage could be seen on the hull.

“I scored I hit,” Captain Pulido announced over the radio. The British ship fired again, narrowly missing what appeared to be the Madreselva. “And they can’t shoot all of us. I need you to turn back and fire some goddamn torpedoes into that thing!”

With a moment of hesitation, the commander of the Madreselva agreed. The Matador repeated its shot, which fell slightly short. But now she was taking fire from the British frigate. Pulido could maneuver and, hopefully, survive a few hits with his own armor. In his heart, he hoped that Captain Sandia on the Hernandez had assumed all the bad luck of this engagement. Pulido turned his vessel to the port again, zig zagging closer to the British frigate to keep both of his guns in action. While he dueled with the enemy, the Madreselva took her opportunity. Her captain turned around, charging again towards the British fleet.

With both of the British frigate’s guns directed towards the Matador, the Madraselva was able to take revenge on the Girasol. The torpedo launchers held two torpedoes, which were both swiveled to the enemy frigate and fired immediately. Caught between the pincers of two attacks, the British frigate took one hit of the Matador’s guns to the starboard side of her superstructure and two of the Madraselva’s torpedoes to her port stern. The Matador’s bridge erupted into cheers as the British frigate went up in flames, the two bursts of fire from the port side condemning the vessel to a swift sinking.

With the two British warships sinking into the sea and a patrol boat beginning its own demise, Captain Pulido made a decision. The Girasol was decimated, the Hernandez was heavily wounded, and he had two patrol vessels in close contact with an enemy fleet that may have more heavy warships like the frigate they had just destroyed. Over the radio, Captain Pulido gave the order for Task Force 11 to disengage. They were to regroup, maintain a defensive posture, and pick up any survivors that they could find. The British were interested only in a quick getaway, and Pulido didn’t want to risk any damage to his ship or the damaged Hernandez if he didn’t have to.

Task Force 11 pulled together and waited through the night as the British patrol boats realized what was happening and broke contact. Captain Pulido watched and waited as the merchant marine fleet, now two freighters short, got away. But the British had also lost a corvette and a frigate underneath the waters of the Caribbean, and the Mexicans were picking up the survivors of a single patrol ship while one of its corvettes sought the safety of its task force for safe passage to a repair yard.

Survivors in life rafts fired flares into the air all night. The Matador slowed to a crawl as it sailed through the wreckage and debris of the battle. In lifeboats and rafts, her rescue parties picked up survivors both British and American. As the rescue operations continued into the morning, the British pack was long gone to the northeast. All that was left were the Mexican ships and the flotsam of the battle. To Captain Pulido, it reminded him again of the eerie feeling of encountering the USS Isherwood and the ARA Ironia.

This was mission success for Task Force 11. But the war had just begun for the ARM Matador.

alpine republic

THE MOUNTAINEER

A LONE MAN IN WHITE stuck his crampon into the thick ice walls of a mountain that towered high above the Alpine Republic. He swung a pick with a harsh grunt into the sparking-white cliff, grunting with exertion. With a labored lift of the head, he could see the ledge was a mere few feet above him. His tired legs, exhausted from hours of climbing, were renewed with energy. He continued his climb, the ice chipping and crunching underneath his tools as he struggled upwards.

Finally, he swung his leg above the lip of the cliff and swung the rest of his body up behind it. He found himself laying face down on flat ground. He leapt up, jumping into the air, and offered a cheer to the empty mountain range. It echoed below and beyond him, and he took a minute to observe the Alpine Republic's fantasy-world landscape. With warmth in his heart, he smiled to himself. He thought of the stories of paradise that had been told to him in his Alaskan youth. From his pocket, the man in white withdrew a picture of Sarah Palin that he kissed dearly. The prize was almost in sight.

He trudged forward as the wind began to pick up. Snow and ice cut at him despite his cold weather gear. He walked for an hour until he found a cave nestled at the peak of the mountain, whereupon he stopped and rested. Inside was a treasure too great for a mortal man. The man in white sighed; he would have prayed, or knelt, or hoped to a higher power, or played the stations of the cross against his chest if religion wasn't a decrepit institution. Instead, his self will and the invisible hand pushed him forward.

It was exactly what he he was looking for. An aura of light surrounded the pillar of ice. Perched atop it, frozen to an immaculately sculpted base, was a golden AR-15 rifle. The man in white approached it, the Angel Moroni singing to him angelically. His cold fingers were warmed by the scene, heat radiating from the barrel as if it had just shot down three protesters in the far North. The man in white felt his feet life off the ground as an otherworldly power took control of his mortal body. He grabbed the AR-15: it came unglued from the ice effortlessly.

Holding the ancient weapon in his hand, the man in white charged the handle and loaded a round into its breech. He looked towards the mouth of the cave, towards the snow-blind and windswept landscape ahead of him.

"With this weapon," he declared, hoisting the rifle high into the air, "I shall bring libertarian glory to the Alpine Republic!"

N.E.O. - New Earth Oracle

Saint-Nazaire, France

He was in too much shock to feel the pain. In a mess of sparking wires, ruptured pipes, and twisted metal, Mohammad clutched and clawed at anything that might get him out. Electricity, tinged an unfamiliar green, arced across open conduits and liquified whatever got in the way into hot molten flows. His glasses had been broken and scattered across the deck and he couldn’t move the left side of his body. He flailed and whipped his right arm, seeking something firm to hold onto as he felt the catwalk collapse under his body.

The metal snapped, the deck swinging downwards a few degrees and sliding him into the warped remains of the safety railing. He felt his body impact the rail and stabilize, barely hanging on from what seemed like an abyss below. He remained there, his head too jumbled to form any cohesive thoughts as he passed out.

He awoke to the touch of something grabbing underneath his arms and sliding him into a basket of some sort. A haze of the encroaching pain darkened the edges of his vision as he grunted and groaned. Through the blurriness, he saw a masked figure in a bright orange suit clip a carabiner onto a series of ropes above them. The figure waved, and Mohammad’s body lifted off the ground. Through the maw of jagged metal, he emerged from the darkness as the person on the basket raised his hand up to grab onto something. Hovering high above the deck of a ship, a helicopter was painted the same shade of orange as the suited figure.

Limp and hazy, Mohammad felt the whupping of the helicopter blades in the air upon his body. The orange suited man stepped over him, head ducked low, through the open side hatch of the craft and pulled Mohammad in by the shoulders. He rolled out of the basket onto what felt like a canvas stretcher parallel to the helicopter’s open bay where another masked, orange-suited man hurriedly rushed back and forth between blinking machines and pulling medical instruments from brightly color-coded pouches secured to the wall. Two straps were secured across his legs and his torso to tie him down during the movement as the helicopter lurched forward and sped away.

In the cabin, the two rescuers got to work. Their orange armor, a civilianized version of the military’s CED suits for hazardous Langium contamination, bore nametags on their breastplates and Gendarmerie Maritime emblazoned across their backplates. The simple black-and-yellow anchor insignia of the Gendarmerie’s coast guard service adorned their left shoulder. A painted red and white paramedic’s cross was situated on the other. Their helicopter had been dispatched from a littoral search and rescue station thirty minutes previously after police in Nantes had reported a large explosion from the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard.

Mohammad was, so far, their first patient. The fires on the ship, now listing in its drydock with subsequent explosions sending rippling aftershocks through the shipyard, were only growing. The scope of the accident was only beginning to manifest as additional first responders being scrambled from across western France. Helicopters, both civil and military medical evacuation craft, buzzed past the Gendarmerie Maritime bird on its way to any hospital that would take it. The pilot and copilot talked hurriedly over the emergency frequency in the cockpit, their thesis remaining the same: “We have a Langium-contaminated patient and we need immediate emergency trauma aid.”

Mohammad groaned as the pain grew on him. He was now acutely aware that the entire right side of his body was hot and burned. He tried to struggle against the restraints in an attempt to writhe from the flashes of sharp pain shooting through his body while the flight medics injected him with needles. The medics, using large syringes, had a pharmacy of medications that they needed to apply. The first shot inhibited the growing amount of harmful Langium contamination spreading throughout the body by delivering an impotent and harmless NLC compound to be absorbed by the important organs. The medical theory, at least, was similar to iodine treatments in radiological incidents: the organs would be saturated enough by Langium-based compounds that they would not take in harmful contamination.

The next round of treatment focused on the immediate external burns, which proved to be the most painful for Mohammad. The burns were an ugly cross between electrical and chemical burns, leaving the arm and torso of the engineer blistered and bleeding. A strange green and grey coloration had developed in the burns: a deeply unsettling sight even to the flight medics, who had been trained only on years of conventional injuries. The pilots repeated their request for immediate first aid, adding in that the patient was now a major burn victim.

A hospital at Nantes confirmed that their facilities were cleared for Mohammad’s arrival and a receiving team was readying for the helicopter. Mohammad was their first call for severe NLC exposure, and they knew that the night was still young. Their best efforts were the standard treatment of water and loose bandages across the exposed skin. Blood and fluids still seeped endlessly into the cloth. The medics endlessly rotated out these bandages when they became too saturated, throwing them haphazardly into a biohazard bag in the corner of the cabin. The medications delivered became more specialized, a cocktail of Langium-based substances to desperately combat the increasing severity of the contamination.

The flight lasted another ten minutes. As the life support machines messaged readouts about Mohammad’s health and status, the medics adjusted accordingly. As his oxygen level lowered, the lead medic made the decision to hook the patient to a flight ventilator for supplemental oxygen. More bandages were applied to the burns, and more stabilizing medications were applied. Laying on the stretcher, fading into unconsciousness again, Mohammad was now kept alive by a myriad of machines and technology. He never felt the helicopter touch down on the helipad of the CHU de Nantes university hospital.

The flight medics slid open the door of the still-running helicopter and the pair hoisted Mohammad’s stretcher onto a waiting gurney attended to by a cadre of trauma doctors and nurses. One of the flight medics identified the lead doctor on the case and rushed over to her, handing a document case full of the extensive treatment log that they had kept of medications applied during the flight. Over the roaring chopping of the helicopter blades, he asked her if she had any questions via the CED helmet’s loudspeaker. She had none. As quickly as the Gendarmerie Maritime had come, they had to leave as well. Another radio call came in for a dockworker who had been severely wounded in the explosion. The orange-suited medics rushed back to the helicopter which wasted no time taking off again.

The dockyard at Chantiers de l’Atlantique was ablaze as electrical fires caused systems explosions and conventional fires in the surrounding buildings. Fire engines from across the region had arrived to combat the flames. Dozens of trucks searched for any fire hydrant they could find, attaching to the water main in Saint-Nazaire and throwing foam and water onto the fires before they could spread any further. Workers, engineers, and staff fled the scene in wild crowds. The police at the shipyard, still dressed in their riot gear from their earlier encounter with protestors, had been redeployed to herd the panicking workers into safe zones far away from Langium exposure.

A train of emergency vehicles crowded outside the shipyard as French leaders were awoken with news of the developing disaster. The local police and fire, desperately trying to battle the otherworldly flames from the ship, placed calls to the only people they knew with training: the Paris Fire Brigade.

Paris, France

In a Parisian apartment, the landline in the kitchenette rang suddenly at three in the morning. In bed, sleeping face down into his pillow, Commandant Alex Lejeune reacted by putting another pillow on top of his head. He was alone in his apartment; his wife and kids having gone to visit their grandparents for the weekend while he stayed behind and rested from a long week at work. The phone rang again a few minutes later and Alex was awoken by the lighting in his bedroom slowly turning on. In the corner, a monitor flickered to life and cast a ghostly green glow over the dim room.

“Monsieur Alex,” said the soft female electronic voice of the apartment’s digital assistant through the room’s speakers. “The telephone has rung twice, and the number is the BSPP charge of quarters. I am programmed to alert you to a potential work emergency.”

Alex rolled over again and stared up at the lights as the telephone rang for a third time in the other room. He muttered a curse to himself as he got out of bed in his undershirt and boxers and stumbled to the hallway. He still felt the previous night’s whiskey: a small nightcap, but he was getting middle-aged now. The apartment’s assistant, whom he called Francine, turned on the lights automatically as he grumbled his way into a bathrobe and walked to the kitchen. He pulled the phone off of its dock and groggily answered: “Commandant Lejeune speaking.”

“Sir, we received an emergency telefax for an industrial accident at Chantiers de l’Atlantique’s drydocks. Initial reports indicate that a Langium-reactor has suffered a huge explosion,” said the firefighter on the desk. “They’re working the coordination piece but they’re calling the sapeurs-pompiers along with our NLC response teams.”

“Jesus Christ,” Alex muttered. “Okay, give me an hour to get ready. I’m coming in, we’ll start dispatching our on-call companies.”

The duty firefighter acknowledged and hung up. “Francine,” he called. The AI blinked a light on the kitchen’s monitor in response. “Forward all calls to my work number,” he commanded. “I’ve got to go in for something. And can you start a cup of coffee while you’re at it?”

Alex headed into his bedroom and opened the closet where his dark blue and red-striped firefighter’s uniform hung. In the kitchen, the coffee maker whirred as a cup was rotated on a revolver-like platter to the nozzle of the machine. He quickly threw his pants and shirt on, taking a second to throw some deodorant on in lieu of a shower, before lacing up his boots. On his way out the door, he grabbed his duty belt that hung by the door and checked his pager: eight more messages from different officers in the Paris Fire Brigade, all telling him to call them. Commandant Lejeune would have to wait until he got into the office.

The headquarters of the Troisième Groupement d'Incendie, the on-call subordinate unit of the overall Paris Fire Brigade, was already a hive of activity when Commandant Lejeune arrived at the gate. After hurriedly scanning his ID card through, he parked and rushed into the office with a slight jog. Officers were beginning to appear, each of them called in by the charge of quarters, and were making arrangements to dispatch their emergency fire services. Some were coordinating with Nantes to find out more about the situation and who was already there: nothing was worse than creating a traffic jam by sending too much equipment through all at once.

The Commandant arrived at his office and hung his jacket up just as the phone began to ring. It was the first of many phone calls that night as the sapeurs-pompiers loaded up their equipment and readied their vehicles for convoy operations. Outside his window that looked into the motor pool, he could see the fire engines lining up at the gate while police vehicles from the Gendarmerie flashed their lights and sirens to clear traffic in the early morning rush hour. In other parts of the city, helicopters were already being spun up to deliver the most critical aid and personnel while the fire engines were on their way.

It was a historically frenzied operation, one that Commandant Lejeune had never heard of before. But something told him that a reactor accident in Nantes was going to be a very complicated call. Deep in his gut, he felt that they simply didn’t know the full extent of the damage and this was going to be a very bad day. He kept working anyways, running the phones through to the different companies that were being dispatched. It would be noon by the time the first BSPP assets arrived at Chantiers de l’Atlantique.

Precipice Of War: The Reboot of a Reboot

Belmopan, British Belize
August, 1955

Captain Lopez walked forward at the high ready, his eye focused through the radium-painted tips of his Mondragón rifle’s sights. Ahead of him, a distinctly official British soldier held his hands clasped in front of his waist. Atop his head lay a worn round officer’s cap and his shoulders bore the two diamonds of a First Lieutenant. His formation behind him looked down at their boots, hands over their heads as more Mexican soldiers marched out of the fields to surround them. Captain Lopez stopped in front of the officer and lowered his rifle. The two stared at each other; the British officer parsing his complicated emotions silently before moving his hand to his leather belt holster.

Lopez’s hands jumped but he kept himself composed. His executive officer had arrived to the left of the commander. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lieutenant Mun͂oz jolt his weapon back towards shoulder level and bark a command to stop. The commander, acting quickly, grabbed the barrel Mun͂oz’s rifle and forced it back down. The British officer’s eyes were wide, his right hand paused on the latch of his leather holster. Lopez nodded at him. Shakily, the lieutenant unclasped the cover and withdrew an ancient-looking Webley revolver pointed carefully towards the ground. He extended it out in his hand.

Lopez reached out with his left hand to take the piece from the lieutenant. It felt light in his hand, unloaded and harmless. The Mexican commander brought it up to eye level and inspected the officer’s sidearm: he had never seen an authentic British weapon so up close and personal before. Without another word, the British lieutenant repeated the process with his pistol belt, removing it from his waist and handing it over. Lopez nodded again, taking the leather holster and replacing the revolver in its pocket before handing it off to Mun͂oz.

“What’s your name?” asked Captain Lopez simply.

The British officer hesitated. “First Lieutenant Baker, Lloyd S.,” he answered in his accented Spanish. “Platoon commander of 3rd Platoon, Company A, Belize Rifle Regiment.”

He looked five to ten years younger than Captain Lopez. Lieutenant Baker was practically a boy, probably a recent graduate from their Sandhurst academy. Lopez remembered his time as a lieutenant, how he didn’t know about anything. At least he had a strong captain to guide him: Baker was out in the middle of nowhere with no guidance and no superiors.

“And these are your men?” Lopez asked, gesturing towards the British soldiers who were now submitting themselves to checks and inspections by the Mexican paratroopers. There were roughly a dozen men left out of the small guard force in Belmopan. Anything of value was taken from their person. Militarily, this meant maps and notebooks and useful objects like compasses or field gear. Other items like watches, rings, and money from the prisoners’ pockets also found their ways into the rucksacks of the Mexican men.

Belizean townspeople had begun to congregate on the outskirts of the barracks now that the shooting had died down. At first, cautious men emerged from hiding to inspect what had happened. They were soon engaged in conversation by the Mexicans spreading out throughout the streets to secure and inspect other parts of town. Soon after, women and children appeared as well after hearing that the invaders were friendly and spoke better Spanish than the British. They talked to the Mexican troops, confused. Was this a liberation for them, or a conquest? Not even the Mexican soldiers knew.

Lieutenant Baker sighed, looking back at his formation. He turned to Captain Lopez. “What are you going to do with us?” he asked cautiously. The scenes of Mexican soldiers looting valuables from his platoon had not inspired confidence in their treatment, but so far nobody had been beat or otherwise abused.

“We have orders to escort all prisoners to an exchange point with military police,” Lopez answered. It was customary. Officer to officer, he knew that the British platoon commander deserved to know the situation. “The military police will transport you to a prisoner of war camp.”

“You really went all out, didn’t you,” Baker mused. “And we had no idea you were coming until your planes dropped you in the fields.”

Lopez shrugged. He didn’t have an answer for that either. They were both just doing what they were told. “We are going to remove the British occupation from this country. That’s our job here.”

Baker sighed dejectedly. He had no way to contact his higher command and inform them about the surrender. For all he knew, the regimental leadership in Belize City were just not arriving to work clueless of the situation in the outskirts of the country.

From behind Lopez’s shoulder, First Sergeant Kan emerged from a throng of headquarters soldiers moving into the town to set up their command post. Hulking above the shorter commander and muscles rippling underneath his uniform shirt, he simply asked if the British officer spoke Spanish. Baker affirmed that fact with his reply.

“I don’t like you,” he growled intimidatingly, “and you sure as hell don’t like me.”

Baker, caught off guard, clutched his hands into fists with his knuckles white.

“But rules are rules and I have orders,” he instructed. “You are to be quartered in your barracks after we inspect it for arms and equipment. You’ll be guarded. You will be fed. Where is your senior sergeant?”

Baker nervously turned back to the formation and called a sergeant over. His lack of stripes and terrified demeanor denoted him as a lower NCO, inexperienced as a platoon sergeant. Perhaps he was a replacement for a killed superior. First Sergeant Kan took the British man aside to lay out the rules of their custody, hammering home the facts to a man who could barely stand up straight and shook like he had just stepped into harsh winter without a jacket. Lopez looked at the scene, then turned back to Baker.

“Right, I’ll leave you to your quarters,” Lopez said. He motioned his hand for a party of NCOs and paratroopers to move forward and prepare their captive quarters while he turned away to Lieutenant Mun͂oz.

“Have the platoons checked in via radio?” he asked his executive officer. The younger officer nodded as they both started walking back towards the company command point. It had been moved into town, in the backyard of a farmhouse where the soldiers were busy raising radio antennae and setting out their maps and graphics on top of a weathered white wooden table. The operations sergeant was beside the house, talking to the owner about how they were going to need to occupy the land for a little bit until they moved out. The Belizean farmer nodded solemnly, looking at the Mexican soldiers rushing back and forth across the town.

Captain Lopez walked through the wooden fence’s gate and unbuckled his helmet with a heavy sigh. He tossed it onto a chair near the map table and set his rifle down leaned up onto it. He followed by stripping off the uncomfortable web gear that he had worn throughout the assault, solely keeping the holster that he had received from Lieutenant Baker on his hip. The British officer’s pistol belt sagged heavily on Lopez’s skinny waist: the Brits fed their men quite a bit out in the colonies.

“Morning, sir,” one of the operations soldiers greeted him. It was Especialista Reyes, his radioman. The bulky manpack radio was leaned up behind him and a cable had been connected to a portable antenna that now reached high into the air. The platoon leaders were squawking at each other on the static-filled net, setting up their security positions and pulling men off the line to handle priorities of work like cleaning weapons or eating for the first time that day.

Lopez returned the greeting as he rummaged through his heavy rucksack for a notebook and his pens. On a separate radio, someone was trying to raise their sister company who had dropped in a few kilometers south and was securing another town on the western flank. All of the Brigada de Fusileros Paracaidistas were committed to closing the western passes to Guatemala before the mechanized 2/a Brigada Blindada rolled into the country. They had just finished preparations at Mérida in Yucatan state and were staged on the border at Chetumal for their attack.

The Brigada de Fusileros Paracaidistas, including Lopez’s company, would wait in Belmopan for the day before regrouping with two other companies and beginning the 25-kilometer push to the twin towns of Churchyard and La Democracia. Other units would secure the rear area as glider-borne reinforcements would deliver support units to build up the area. All of this was being coordinated on the radio. They knew that the element of surprise was going to be lost any hour now, especially as the sleepy Belizean towns woke up. Word traveled quickly, and it wasn’t like the Mexicans could kill anyone who could spread a message of invasion.

Lopez sat down with Lieutenant Mun͂oz at the map table as the executive officer began writing down the things that he needed to do. He was a good officer and knew his role well: the executive officer wasn’t merely the second in command, but handled the day-to-day tasks that kept the company running. He, along with First Sergeant Kan, coordinated for the mundane things like food and supply, medical treatment of the injured, maintenance of the weapons, and now the movement of enemy prisoners. It was a lot on his plate, keeping with the fine tradition of XOs being the most overworked junior officers in the military.

As they worked, the distant sounds of gunfire picked up again in the still morning air. Lopez stopped writing and looked over his shoulder down south to where a friendly company of paratroopers was fighting. He turned to Reyes, who was sitting on a bag of flour eating rations out of a can next to the radio. “Make sure the platoons know to expect action soon,” he said to him. “I’m not sure if that’s a counterattack or just residual fighting. But we got off easy here.”

Reyes acknowledged the order and got onto the radio to repeat it out to the subordinate officers. They all repeated their same acknowledgements as the message went further down their chains of command.

For the day, however, nothing happened. Mexican soldiers watched the road to La Democracia but nobody ever came their direction to investigate. Dismounted patrols throughout the jungle to their north and south never yielded any enemy scouts or reconnaissance soldiers. Aside from the sporadic fighting earlier that day, the west of Belize was quiet. The British never had many forces in Belize to begin with, of course, but it was curious that there was no attempt to fight back against a brigade of Mexican soldiers who had just dropped from the sky into their territory.

Lopez had heard from the colonels that this whole operation was to split the Brits in two and take advantage of their commitment to the war with Japan. Maybe they were right, maybe the British really had allocated most of their manpower to the Pacific theater.

Men rotated in and out of resting that night, holing up in their mosquito nests to keep the damned insects away from them. The jungle, filled with diseased and malarial troubles, was no place for man. Lopez wondered how the rural folks did it, as he himself was a city boy from Guadalajara. Camping was a vacation for him, not a way of life. Because of that, he had found himself a sofa to sleep on in the first floor of their command post’s building. The owner, an elderly Belizean man, kept to himself in the second floor since talking to the operations sergeant, but Lopez could hear him sneak downstairs to use the kitchen for food.

Lopez, half asleep and half naked in his undershirt and skivvies, opened his eyes to see the old man in pajamas holding a candle as he crept across the creaky floorboards. Lopez shifted, sitting up and letting his field blanket fall softly to the floor. The Belizean man turned around, freezing in his tracks. “Oh, I’m sorry to wake you sir,” he said meekly. The candle cast a flickering light across his worried face.

“It’s alright,” Lopez said, shrugging it off. “I hope I’m not-“

“No, no,” the farmer said. “I talked to that, uh, Sergeant Delgado earlier. You are free to come and go, you will be here for only a few nights.”

“That’s right,” Lopez replied groggily. “I, uh, we’ll leave you be after that. I hope we didn’t scare you too bad coming in.”

The Belizean man placed the candle in a holder on the wall and shuffled over to a chair to sit down in. “I never thought war would come to Belize, at least not in my lifetime.”

“Well, the Briti-” started Lopez. The old man shook his head and crossed his arms.

“The British have been here. They don’t bother me,” the old man sighed. “Would I like it if we were our own country? Sure. But ‘Belize’ or ‘British Honduras’, I just sell my harvest.”

He looked over Captain Lopez’s uniform, noticing the shiny rank insignia on his collars. The old Belizean man asked him if he was an officer.

“Captain,” simply replied Lopez. He frowned, noticing the upset look on the Belizean man’s face.

“So you’re in charge?”

“I am, yes,” Lopez said. “Of my little company, at least.”

“Then you’re the sensible one here,” the old man said. “Listen, I don’t care much about the great game of countries. But I care about my family and my people. I know you’re not stopping here in my little town, once you leave. You’re going to the capital.”

Lopez nodded. “Of course. We have to.”

“My kids and grandkids live there now,” the old man stated firmly. “They went there for school and work. Nobody wants to be a farmer anymore. You know how it is.”

Lopez nodded again, listening to the old man.

“Well, when you get there, there will be fighting. The people who live there… I need you to keep them from getting hurt. I know you don’t want to hurt us, I watched you. You shot at the British but you let them surrender. You weren’t shooting at us. Your men don’t shoot at us. You’re just playing the game of politics. Keep us in mind when you get to Belize City, Captain.”

The old man smiled at Captain Lopez, satisfied. He rose from the chair, his joints and bones creaking and cracking as he bent down to retrieve the candle. He shuffled towards the kitchen again but paused when he got to the doorway. “Do you want anything, Captain?”

Lopez, still processing the conversation, looked up at the figure of the old farmer. He gestured to his rucksack in the corner with some tin cans inside glinting in the candlelight: “No, I- I have my rations.”

The old man squinted, then shook his head again. “Dios mío,” he muttered in paternal disapproval. “You army boys with your canned food. Tell you what, I will get with the town tomorrow and we will make you all something.”

“I think, sir, that would be appreciated,” Lopez said with a heartfelt nod. “I’ll look forward to it.”

The old man grunted in approval before vanishing into the kitchen. Captain Lopez laid back down on the sofa, turning to his side. Outside, the night was dark and quiet. The Mexicans had dug into their fighting positions with small shovels, laying down prone with eyes down the dirt roads leading west. Others patrolled the town in silence. The night would be just as quiet as the day, with only the semi-frequent radio checks coming through the command post’s radio speakers to punctuate the calm.

Captain Lopez awoke to the sounds of roosters calling in the new day with sunlight shining through the windows of the farmhouse. He rose up off the sofa, stretching his arms out and searching for his uniform when he smelt a familiar smell. On the side table, an aged porcelain cup had been placed with steaming coffee inside. Captain Lopez looked around the empty room, then to the stairs that led to the second floor of the farmhouse. He took the cup of coffee and felt its warmth in his hands. The company commander blew across the top of it to cool the heat before drinking: it was strong and black. He smiled, looking back towards the stairs where the old man lived. Then he began to gather his uniform and get ready for the day.