Another update. I think I CAN upload images again. So I may be able to get the chapter posted soon. Maybe in the next post I make.
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Chapter 454: Morning in Eimerica
“Ye maca timiquican, ye maca tipolihuican.” (May we not die, may we not perish.)
-Battle cry of medieval Triple Alliance jaguar warriors, resurrected by modern Mexicanist State of Cemanahuac (MSC) ocelomeh fighters as one of their own battle cries
In the early months of 2013, the Russian government declared bankruptcy again, to the surprise of nobody. By now, Russian government bankruptcies were routinely expected every few years, despite the economy having improved relative to where it was in 1986. Non-Roman foreign investments dried up because of the high risks and no rewards. Even many Romans had begun questioning the Merkel administration’s continuation of Kohl’s subsidies, considering it a huge drain on financial resources which could be better used to help the eastern provinces or Africa’s many Länder, which were tired of being ignored by Europe.
The Alternative for the (Roman) Reich party, better known as Alternative for Rhomania (AfR), capitalized on this sentiment. Going into the 2015 examinations, the non-mainstream party on the right built a new platform around ending the Russian subsidies and reinvesting the funds in the eastern provinces. As word of their promise spread, their popularity surged, dislodging left wing parties like the SPR and PMS in the east and eroding the CMU’s support among blue collar workers in the west. However, the surge stalled, as the rest of the platform, focusing on cutting back immigration of all kinds, remained unpalatable to the public, and Africans realized they would still be ignored. Its leaders were also tainted with allegations of Mexicaphobia and ties to neo-Angeloi groups.
In the meantime, the Roman government subsidized construction of an Olympic Village in Constantinople’s suburbs and prepared the New Hippodrome for the coming 2016 games.
Starting in 2013 and continuing for the rest of the decade, the world’s supernational blocs entered a period of rapid expansion and consolidation. Small countries, still reeling from the lasting economic effects of the recession, formed or joined economic and customs unions with the hope that deeper cooperation and freer trade would reboot their economies and help them weather the next big economic crisis.
Burma was the first country to strengthen supernational ties as part of this trend. Yangon’s government chose to officially join ASEAN in July. In addition to gaining access to the Southeast Asian economic union, ASEAN was also brought closer to India. Countries like Siam and Malaya though expressed concern as to India expanding its regional influence, but Delhi promised to respect and protect the neutrality and sovereignty of ASEAN members. Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkestan announced the formation of their own regional bloc, the Central Asian Confederation. The aim of this bloc was primarily economic, like ASEAN, but a secondary goal was to safeguard the national interests of the three countries against possible Roman, Chinese, and Indian interference. Such interference though was unlikely, given the ASEAN member states were on good terms with the three major powers.
The NEC saw the most growth, though. In June, the office of State Commissioner, the de facto head of state of the NEC, passed to the ambitious Jorvik Thordarsson, son of Kanatan chancellor Petur Thordarsson and a former Kanatan chancellor in his own right.
Jorvik Thordarsson, North Eimerican State Commissioner
The young reformer used his charisma to broker a historic series of treaties with the Eimerican Commune successor states. Personally mediating each individual treaty, he secured all but one state’s transition to a democratic or meritocratic government and membership in the NEC; the nationalist Meskwaki Empire regime was the lone holdout, refusing to join as long as its rival the MFS was a member. To protect these new member states and build a case for the CSSA successor states to follow, Thordarsson convinced the older member states, particularly Fusang and Kanata, to contribute more troops to a supernational peacekeeping force to protect against Mexicanist and other insurgencies. Attempts to formally consolidate this force into a conventional army were met with strong opposition from Fusang and Kanata though, which feared it would be used to weaken their influence and national military strength. Thordarsson shelved those plans, intending to pursue them when public opinion was more in his favor. While the Kanatans were slowly coming around to the idea, the Fusangren were firmly opposed to it as of now, with no indications they would change their minds soon.
Thordarsson’s greatest triumph to date took place in Tawantinsuyu. For the last few years, Tawantinsuyu had held honorary membership in the NEC since it was the North Eimerican Community after all. Cusco had often petitioned for full membership at Federal Assembly meetings in Jinshan. Fusang was in favor of bringing its old ally into the bloc, but Mexico and the UPM, Tawantinsuyu’s ancient enemy and breakaway province, strongly resisted. After weeks of negotiations with the four countries, which the Mayan delegation helped mediate, Thordarsson managed to get a deal which would grant Tawantinsuyu full membership. In exchange for this, the NEC would be reformed into simply the Eimerican Community, or EC. This was ironically the same abbreviation used for the Eimerican Commune, which several member states, particularly Eimerican Commune successor states, strongly protested. Thordarsson promised he would work on a new name as soon as possible.
The continent’s major currencies—the Kanatan kroner (used in Kanata and the UTR successor states on the east coast), the Fusang yuan (used in Fusang, the MFS, and many of the Eimerican Commune successor states), and the Mexican tetl (used in Mexico, the UPM, Tejas, and Aztlan and pegged to the Mayan kakawa, which was used in those countries as well)—were to have their exchange rates fixed. This effectively united the three currencies and made it easier to exchange between then, strengthening the economic power of Mexico and the UPM. Tawantinsuyu was to peg its currency to the tetl/yuan/kroner/kakawa once its finances were in a much better situation. Thordarsson’s plan was to eventually pave the way for a single currency to replace the continents’ many national currencies and streamline trade even more. A more consolidated single market would also assuage Mexican and Mitteleimerican fears by making sure Tawantinsuyu would be on the same economic footing as them. But for now, such a single market was limited to Fusang and Kanata to test it out first, with the UPM and Mayapan promising to join once it was proven successful.
A similar movement took place on the other side of the world, but this was more of a traditional national unification movement, centered on Nepal and Bhutan and their ties with India. The two countries had much in common with India, sharing populations, languages, and cultures. Nepal itself had been artificially split off from India only decades ago. Bhutan itself had split off from Nepal at the beginning of the century and was still trying to develop its own identity, with not much success. Both countries had serious economic and social issues they found difficult to resolve on their own.
In the New World, Thordarsson was faced with his first real challenge. Many North Eimerican nations joined the EC due to continued instability in Cemanahuac and the promise of supernational peacekeeping, but their participation did not ease internal tensions which came from a variety of sources. Protests had simmered in Tejas for at least five years, the most notable occurring at a major oil refinery in west Tejas, where protesters staged rallies, sit-ins, and strikes for several months before the secret police arrested everybody.
In Mayapan, workers organized thousands of strikes against the unregulated capitalism prevalent in the country under an increasingly illiberal regime. Major unions planned a general strike, which was promoted by computer-literate working-class youths and middle-class college students in an online viral campaign. In response, the Mayan government sent infiltrators and riot police to break up the strike and arrest its leaders. The Mayan government’s actions were heavily criticized as going against the spirit of the country’s meritocracy, including by Thordarsson himself, and many feared the country was headed down the path of authoritarianism again. Yajaw K'ahk' Hakal Rak was especially criticized, but he blamed “foreign meddlers” for forcing him to use heavy handed tactics. In response, Thordarsson and Merkel threatened to impose sanctions.
Fusang wasn’t spared the unrest. The Roman ambassador to Fusang wrote in a leaked diplomatic cable that Fusangren, especially native Eimericans in the south, were “unhappy” with long-standing political alienation in favor of the Chinese-dominated coastal and northern cities. In the south, food strikes occurred every week, and there were demonstrations every day calling for reform. Many protests cited issues such as education and health care, which had been gutted by the administration, while others complained about a bias towards urban and northern Chinese, Manchu, and Navajos.
The catalyst for further escalation was the self-immolation of a Tejan street vendor on June 6 to protest police corruption, filmed by shocked bystanders and spread online. His death brought together various groups dissatisfied with the Tejan regime, including many unemployed, political and human rights activists, labor, trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, Mexicanists, equalists, Paulluists, Mexican unification nationalists, and others to begin the Tejan Revolution.
The Tejan Revolution
In a month, the Tejan government was overthrown, the absolute monarch stripped of powers, and a Roman-style meritocracy declared. Inspired by the success of the Tejan protesters, a wave of unrest rippled out to Osage, the CSA, Creek, Aztlan, and Shawnee. As most of the initial protesters involved were ethnic Nahua, these movements became known as the Nahua Spring.
Thousands of Mayans gathered in the central markets of New Peten and New Xichen, demanding Rak’s resignation. Rak refused and continued blaming the protests on foreign saboteurs and neo-equalists. Four days later, protests against the Meskwaki Empire regime and its dictator Gikwafi Medewathen broke out in the old industrial towns of the Great Lakes, which had seen their fortunes drastically decline over the last few decades. Medewathen deployed the army to break up the protests by force. Hundreds were killed, sparking massive riots throughout the country and overwhelming the regime. This would soon escalate into a full-blown civil war between Medewathen’s regime and disparate groups of rebels with differing goals. In August, rebel forces coalesced to launch an attack on Michigan City.
After 90 years of rule by many different dictatorships, Pierremaskin’s and Dohumme’s former capital was now a shadow of its former self. The palaces of the Opeatako-Osceola family either fell into ruin or were ill-treated by its current inhabitant, Medewathen, who pawned off many of their treasures on the black market to fuel his war effort. The army was let loose on the ancient streets of Michigan City, looting and pillaging as if they were an invading army. The rebel factions dug in and held their own against the corrupt regime forces, their morale and numbers countering the regime’s technological advantage. Although the regime forces made the rebels bleed for every block of the city, within a week their lines had collapsed. As the people of the city rose in rebellion, tearing down the regime’s flags and toppling Medewathen’s statues, the dictator evacuated Pierremaskin’s palace and fled with his family and remaining loyal generals, taking as much treasure as he could with him. The rebel leaders marched into the palace and declared the Meskwaki people had been set free from nine decades of tyranny.
Later that month, King Tomogata III the UPM was severely injured in a failed assassination attempt blamed on Nahua separatists and Mexicanist organizations. A regency was declared. The government, a right-wing government which had been swept to power on a Mexicaphobic and Muiscan nationalist platform, used the attack as an excuse to increase mass surveillance of and declare martial law over the Nahua-majority north, replacing civilian law enforcement with military units. A total blackout was enforced on the north, and internet and TV services were cut as part of the lockdown. Mexicanist terrorist groups ramped up bombing campaigns against the UPM military, calling on pious Mexica to kill their heathen rulers and reestablish the southernmost altepetl of the Triple Alliance. Merkel again threatened sanctions, but Panama City predicted she would not risk losing access to the Panama Canal to press her demands, taking a page out of Paullu’s playbook.
Otto’s attention was taken up by a hostage situation at Blachernae, where for a few tense moments a madman took him hostage, attempting to replicate Friedrich Augustin von Arbon’s takeover in the modern day. Thanks to the efforts of several Athanatoi agents, the crisis was resolved with Otto unharmed. But the hostage crisis would take up the country’s attention for the next few days as Merkel, the CMU, and the Varangians pointed fingers at each other to see who was to blame for letting the man get right to Otto. Non-mainstream parties declared this incident showed the mainstream parties had grown complacent and calcified, too satisfied with the status quo and busy being deadlocked with each other to push for real change. Roman media stopped covering the crisis in North Eimerica to focus on more profitable political drama.
The next month, Nahua groups protested against the destruction of a Mexica temple in the Cherokee-dominated Shawnee dictatorship. The Shawnee regime responded by sending in tanks and massacring them, provoking another uprising. The country fell into chaos, interrupting the secret passage of Medewathen and his son through the region. His luck ran out as the Shawnee rebels captured them and handed them over to the Meskwaki rebels, who executed them. In a show of mercy, the rest of his family was allowed to seek asylum in the Old World. With Medewathen’s death, the Meskwaki civil war was supposedly over. But almost immediately, the rebel factions turned on each other, fundamentally disagreeing on who should lead the new government and what form it would take. Thanks to support from China, pro-democratic factions ultimately won the power struggle, declaring the Meskwaki Commonwealth and inviting Emperor Pierremaskin II to return to Michigan City. There were even talks of unification with the MFS, which Thordarsson offered to mediate.
Mass protests continued throughout southern Fusang, culminating in a protest in Zhumasi, the great coastal city and the south’s main urban center, by native Eimerican and Nahua groups calling for equal rights and recognition by Jinshan. Although the emperor and chancellor sympathized with the protesters, the majority party in the Diet, a Chinese nationalist party descended from the Fusang Guominjun, did not. The government deployed riot police and troops to break up the Zhumasi protest, causing dozens of casualties. This only caused the riots to spread to more cities, including many Chinese-majority ones. The government continued cracking down, even as the emperor ordered a deescalation. In response, the Fusang Diet sacked the chancellor and replaced him with a more jingoistic one.
Although Merkel threatened to impose sanctions, the Reich’s official policy on the Nahua Spring was to not interfere in what was considered the internal affairs of each North Eimerican nation, although the Kaiser did offer his sympathies to the protesters “fighting for human rights” in his New Year’s address and privately spoke with Thordarsson about the need to take action quickly or watch as the Eimerican Community collapsed. In comparison to the chaos of the New World, the Old World was quiet for the first half of 2014. The only two spectacles were the canonization of Ecumenical Patriarch Ioannes II and the centenary of World War I in June.
(This may not have aged well in light of the last couple days’ events, but Ioannes is not exactly the same as John Paul.)
The latter was marked by Princess Wilhelmina and the Mingzhong Emperor meeting in Prachinburi, Thailand, where they laid the cornerstone for what would be a new World War I battlefield memorial. The rest of the summer saw events in Livonia to commemorate the battles of Vilnius and Grodno, accompanied by vigils and prayers in the rebuilt Hagia Sophia. However, the events were all marred by some rash comments from Wilhelm Karl. Likely enraged his niece had been chosen over him to represent his father at Prachinburi, the Crown Prince denounced the Reich’s cowardice in “bowing” to Chinese demands when China started the war in the first place. Although Merkel quickly issued an apology to contain the damage, Wilhelm Karl then criticized Merkel for proving his point and bowing to China.
The Nahua Spring had no end in sight. Rak continued blaming foreigners and equalists for the mass protests which had now become dangerous riots across Mayapan. By now, rebel groups dedicated to overthrowing Rak had begun organizing in the outer islands. The most powerful of these groups was the New Xichen-based Free Mayan Navy (FMN), formed by an alliance of rogue naval officers and provincial leaders, which maintained its popularity due to its insistence on not only overthrowing Rak but also reforming the Mayan economy to be more equal and fair. Fearing the growing popularity of the Free Mayan Navy, Rak declared martial law in the outer islands and mobilized the Mayan military. A week later, in response to an FMN attack on a military checkpoint on Mayapan Island, the Mayan Navy launched an attack on New Xichen. The offensive began with heavy naval and aerial bombardment by government forces, followed by marines establishing footholds on the island to set up rockets and mortars. Helicopters and tanks then advanced into downtown, supported by rocket fire. After multiple foreign journalists were killed in the attack, human rights groups criticized the bombardment as indiscriminate. Water supplies, electricity and communications were entirely cut off across the city. By the end of the month the FMN’s leadership had been annihilated, crippling the pro-meritocracy rebels. With the collapse of the FMN, many Mayans, particularly the Nahua populations of Cuba, turned to Mexicanist groups as their best shot for overthrowing Rak. Other countries began following Mayapan’s lead, among them Aztlan, which cracked down on its own demonstrations.
Most Romans were more concerned with the examinations at this point. The two front-runners were Merkel, obviously, and Martin Schulz, the SPR’s candidate. Merkel’s campaign focused on continuing her policies, as she had done since 2005. Schulz assailed her from the left on her alleged lack of progress, bringing up the continued economic slump of the eastern provinces and the rampant unemployment and crime there, as well as the crumbling of the welfare state and Imperial Health Service. He also reminded her of the decline of traditional industry in the western provinces and the lack of attention paid to working class individuals who had lost their jobs due to the changing economy while approving tax cuts for the wealthy. Finally, he criticized Merkel for approving the controversial Nord Stream project, a proposed oil pipeline with Russia, as being environmentally dangerous and in the pocket of wealthy oil corporations, which went against her official positions on combating climate change, implying she was a hypocrite. Although he gained a massive online presence and widespread support among minorities and younger Romans, most examiners, who were generally older and from majority demographics, did not agree. Preferring to maintain the status quo, as many of their demographic had well-off lives and good jobs, they sided with Merkel.
SPR candidate Martin Schulz
Schulz wasn’t helped by significant media coverage going to the AfR’s unexpected candidate. At the opening of campaign season, the AfR had been written off as an irrelevant fringe party. But that changed when Osama bin Laden, a real estate heir, announced his candidacy with a controversial speech that insulted Russians as criminals and drug addicts, among other things. While a majority of Romans were obviously shocked by his vulgar words, a not insignificant minority applauded his willingness to sidestep established political norms and “tell it like it is.” Schulz had been doing something similar in his campaign, but major news networks focused more on bin Laden, as the networks gave him no chance of winning and saw broadcasting his ridiculous speeches as good for ratings, as opposed to Schulz’s serious chance of winning (and possibly going after their own money).
Bin Laden served them well. After getting weeks of boosted ratings, news networks ditched him in favor of the Nusantaran annexation of the city-state of Yogyakarta. Some pundits called it a military invasion, as several Nusantaran armored divisions had been deployed into the city. Others explained the people of Yogyakarta had petitioned for annexation, hoping to restore Yogyakarta’s status as the traditional capital of Nusantara (and to fix the city-state’s economy). Yogyakartan security forces opposed to the petition launched a coup, leading to Nusantaran military action.
Backc in the Reich, bin Laden was forced to end his campaign after losing every primary, though not before siphoning away points and supporters which would have gone to Schulz. When the results were tallied in December, Merkel had easily won a third term. The left fractured, unable to mount serious opposition with lackluster candidates, while Schulz was plagued with media blackouts and mischaracterization of his policies as equalism. The other fringe parties siphoned off a few points from the KRA, FMP, Greens, and PMS. The result was the CMU and its allies won 65% of points and a majority of Länder, just one percent shy of a supermajority.
However, the CMU still had to fight for that victory, as the real numbers told another story. Not even considering falling short of the supermajority, a significant chunk of that 65% went to parties which actually were not really allied with the CMU but were simply just centrist or right-leaning enough to be considered in the same ideological bloc and most likely to support the CMU’s proposed legislation. The CMU itself won only 18% of points, a plurality when compared to the winnings of each individual party, but it was a far cry from the 65% Merkel and her favorable news coverage repeated. Since 1945, all parties had been neatly organized into several ideological blocs for convenience. The three major ones were the centrists, right-leaning classic liberals, and the traditional left, led by the CMU, KRA, and SPR respectively. The FMP, usually lumped in with the KRA, was considered the fourth major party. These parties had collectively dominated politics in one form or another since 1836, when the Hohenzollern Faction and the Schweinfurt Faction were founded and gained seats in the newly reformed Diet of Sigismund II. This system heavily favored the four established parties or other parties closely aligned to them, making it hard for new parties to get started. It wasn’t impossible, as many of the religious right parties had successfully been included in Merkel’s coalition during her previous term. Those religious right parties saw a surge in 2015, thanks to one man.
(Like with Ioannes and John Paul, Thierry Baudet here is his own person, separate from the real person.)
Thierry Baudet, a minor politician and former CMU representative from Frisia, rose to prominence during this campaign season. His charisma helped him cobble together many different minor and regional parties, from religious conservatives to environmentalists to mainstream conservatives and some liberals, to form what was effectively a fifth party. Their common goal was to provide the public with an alternative to the four major parties and end their “centuries-old stranglehold” on the Diet and chancellery. Baudet named his alliance of the downtrodden and forgotten The Forum. His message resonated with many Romans who had long ago resigned themselves to Berlin forgetting them. The Forum won 28% of points, more than the SPR’s and KRA’s alliances won. It was a troubling sign for Merkel, but The Forum was not an official party, and each individual party won only 4-5% of points, so the CMU won out, for now. To redirect the narrative in her favor, Merkel wasted no time after the examination concluded, quickly passing an affirmative action bill on New Year’s Day. This would earn her more support among minorities, but many Germans and Greeks were mixed on the law. Some felt it went against the country’s meritocratic traditions.
But it became clear very soon the situation in North Eimerica could no longer be ignored by the Old World. While the democracies, meritocracies, and dictatorships of the continent tore themselves apart in the Nahua Spring and the EC struggled to whack the moles that were the budding insurgencies, the feared terrorist group af-Quetzalcoatl, which had brought the Reich to its knees on November 9, slowly regained ground throughout Cemanahuac. By January 2014, the Mexican government had lost control of most of the north to af-Quetzalcoatl. Af-Quetzalcoatl also seized crucial border towns in Tejas and Fusang, overwhelming local authorities. On January 3, its leader, Ocuil Zolin, a former officer in Zolton Huicton’s army, proclaimed the restoration of the old Triple Alliance and renamed the organization as the Mexicanist State of Cemanahuac (MSC), with himself as the rightful huetlatoani and not the “corrupt foreign puppet” in Aztlan. With the blessing of sympathetic members of the priesthood, Zolin called for a global flower war, a xochiyaoyotl, to assert the supremacy of his extreme brand of Mexicayaotl and the sacrificing of apostates, particularly non-Eimericans.
Secular rebel groups of all kinds, from equalists to Paulluists to separatists, as well as the EC-backed Mexican army, temporarily put aside their differences to fight MSC. But Zolin’s devoted and motivated soldiers, called ocelomeh (jaguar warrior) after the feared shock troops which laid waste to pre-Eimerich North Eimerica and rampaged across the Britannian Isles and Scandinavia during the Thirteenth Century Crisis, easily routed the weakened and disorganized rebel/government alliance. Zolin went on the offensive immediately, his armies sweeping away many of the militias effortlessly. His armies then marched on the industrial city of Nochistlan, one of Mexico’s largest cities and a major government strongholds. After a short assault, its underpaid and exhausted garrison not only surrendered, but dropped their weapons, abandoned their posts, and fled the city in a panic. The disaster was filmed by both militants and locals, and the footage went viral online, humiliating the regime. Hours later, a car bomb detonated in the central market of Gull Rock, Tejas, killing dozens. MSC claimed responsibility, and fear of the organization spread throughout the continent. Zolin and his main army marched south to deal with other rebel groups in northern Mexico, with the goal of taking Tenochtitlan and making it their capital. MSC promised amnesty for anybody who defected but extermination for anybody who resisted. Fully aware of the threat, State Commissioner Thordarsson convinced Fusang and Kanata to contribute more troops to the peacekeeping force.
Shocking online footage of MSC’s atrocities circulated online. The most notorious of these included cutting out the hearts of foreign reporters, flaying prisoners of war alive, or mass executions of ethnic minorities. But despite being outraged by what they saw, the Roman public didn’t pay much more attention besides token opposition. Even Merkel believed Thordarsson had a plan for them, just like he did for everything else. She personally was more focused on the rededication ceremony of the rebuilt Brandenburg Palace on January 27 and the inevitable political debate over Russian subsidies following Tsarberg’s latest declaration of bankruptcy. Public opinion was focused at home, not on the chaos overseas. For all of the mayhem those Mexicanists caused in the New World, it just didn’t affect the Old World…did it?
On March 12, Rak and the rest of the cabinet and royal family were attending a routine naval ceremony when a ship unexpectedly fired a missile at their viewing platform, killing most of them. Half of the attending fleet joined the attack, firing on the crowd and opposing warships. Car bombs detonated throughout New Peten, killing hundreds. With the entire Mayan government decapitated and the main fleet in open rebellion, Mayapan descended into chaos. K’uhul Ajaw Cocom survived the attack but was critically injured and flown to Europe for medical treatment, during which the surviving members of his cabinet forced him to abdicate. His young son, Pacal, attending school in Neurhomania, was declared his successor, but he was kept in Neurhomania under armed guard due to the situation in Mayapan. A naval junta assumed emergency powers, but Cuba, Yucatan, and the other islands organized their own rival juntas based on naval factions, which all began fighting. In that chaos, MSC-aligned groups seized control of strategic ports and cities, particularly in the eastern islands near Neurhomania. What was a highly developed and stable country just a year or two ago had now descended into barbarism and violence like that seen on the mainland.
Meanwhile, despite the increasing body count and the fact that MSC cells controlled territory dangerously close to Neurhomania, major Roman media still focused on domestic news. The Forum underwent a schism between its religious right core and right-wing populist and nationalist parties which had been brought into the fold by Baudet for 2015. The religious right wanted to focus more on environmental concerns and inclusion of minorities, while the populists and nationalists called for a focus on identity politics and an embrace of Christian Germans at the cost of all else, which Baudet refused to support. The populists and nationalists left the alliance, joining the AfR-led National Democratic Front. Now only the core green-purple alliance (green for the environmentalists, purple for the religious right) which formed the basis of The Forum remained without an alliance or unified party of their own, which would help boost their name recognition and performance in 2020. Although the PBC and SIR parties were officially listed as members of this new populist alliance, their leaders insisted they remained part of The Forum and would eventually leave to join whatever bloc or unified party it formed.
Zacatecas was the last major northern government stronghold to fall to MSC. Once news of the city’s fall reached Tenochtitlan, the Mexican government panicked. The cabinet and legislature deliberated on a strategy to counter MSC. With the Reich still seemingly underestimating the severity of the problem and Thordarsson’s peacekeepers tied up further north on the plains, the Mexicans were on their own. However, they couldn’t agree on a plan. The next two weeks were spent arguing in conference rooms about who should pay for the operation, which general should carry it out, what favors were to be done to get the help of certain militias, which militias to ask, and who should get credit. Fed up with the corruption and inaction, General Huicton Ollin took the thirty thousand men under his direct command, the most motivated and best trained in the entire army, out from Tenochtitlan to retake Zacatecas himself, without waiting for authorization from his superiors. He would accept disciplinary action once he had returned from crushing these terrorists. It would be a grave miscalculation.
Zolin’s ocelomeh blew up dams in the vicinity of the advancing government forces, forcing Ollin to relocate to higher ground. Dozens were killed in the floods, not counting the hundreds of civilian casualties. Oil fields were set ablaze, the smoke forcing the troops to change their routes to the ones the ocelomeh wanted them to use. And once Ollin’s forces had relocated to such higher ground, that was exactly where more ocelomeh waited in ambush. Hit and run tactics whittled down Ollin’s numbers by the dozens each hour, while improvised explosive devices claimed hundreds more. In Zacatecas, the ocelomeh easily lured them into a trap in the open desert to the north, where they converged on the soldiers from all directions, with nowhere to run or hide. The demoralized soldiers immediately dropped their weapons and ran as fast as they could from the battlefield, in full view of foreign camera crews who broadcasted their panic around the world.
At least eleven thousand men were captured and sacrificed over a period of three days.
Ollin was captured alive and brought before Zolin. As it turned out, Zolin once served under Ollin’s direct command. He looked nothing like he did in Zolton’s time. He had grown a long beard and replaced his military uniform with traditional religious garb and a feathered headdress. Instead of a regular gun, he carried a macuahuitl, a medieval Triple Alliance sword, alongside a copy of the Codex of Huitzilopochtli, one of the Mexicayaotl sacred texts. His words were filled with cherry-picked religious quotes and archaic poetic verses, and he spoke deliberately and with an unexpected charisma Ollin did not remember. Due to their shared history in Zolton’s army, Zolin spared Ollin and released him, if only to deliver a message to his Roman puppetmasters: the gods were waking, and he was their sword. Huitzilopochtli demanded sacrifices once again, as the end of human sacrifices in the 15th century had led to the Triple Alliance’s steady decline from its 13th century hegemony to constant humiliation after the Sunrise Invasion. Only the blood of the foreigners who defiled Cemanahuac could sate the angry god’s thirst.
When news of the disaster at Zacatecas and the humiliation of the national hero spread, the rest of Mexico descended into chaos. Insurgencies in central Mexico intensified, as both MSC-allied and other militias launched attacks against government forces and each other. Similar uprisings took place in Tejas, Tsalagihi Ayeli (the Cherokee), Creek, and the UPM, among others, demonstrating the extent of MSC’s influence. This was no longer just simply Mexico’s internal affairs.
(Most of MSC’s provinces were given to them by events. I then used the console to give them ownership of any province they occupy.)
What remained of the Mexican army fled as the Mexicanists and other terrorists advanced. Thousands fled their homes. Nochistlan became the MSC’s temporary capital until Tenochtitlan was “liberated.” There, the ocelomeh seized control of government offices, the airport, and police stations. Militants also looted the Central Bank in Nochistlan, reportedly absconding with 429 million marks which would be used to buy weapons and supplies on the black market, as well as fund an online propaganda campaign. Libraries were put to the torch with an enthusiasm not seen since the Fifty Years’ War. In an online video, Zolin declared that “if they contradict the Codex, they are to be burned as heresy, and if they don’t contradict the Codex, they are redundant and should be burned anyways.” The University of Nochistlan’s faculty was flayed alive or sold into slavery and its supply of chemicals and radioactive materials seized to make weapons of mass destruction. Museums were looted, with “heretical” artifacts demolished while the rest were sold on the black market. More than 500,000 people fled to escape MSC. As it was close to the Pacific coast and the Mexican Gulf’s and Aztlan’s oil refineries, its fall posed the threat of MSC seizing control of major Mexican oil production.
At this point, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed alarm at reports that MSC fighters "have been actively seeking out and killing soldiers, police and civilians, whom they perceive as being associated with the government". Finally realizing how dangerous MSC was, Merkel requested 500 million marks from the Diet to use to train and arm moderate Mexican, Mayan, and North Eimerican rebels and government forces to counter MSC attacks and keep allied governments in power. Although the mainstream parties were generally in favor of the aid, the new Liberal-Conservative Reformer Party, a centrist party promoting itself as an alternative to the “ideological extremes” of the four mainstream parties, insisted on half that amount in the name of compromise and had the votes to force the main four to comply. What compromise they wanted was beyond anybody’s understanding.
Things took a turn for the worst when a series of attacks struck Frankfurt in the days leading up to the annual November 9 memorials. The first incident was the assassination of Aliya Hussein, an economist and billionaire who was known to support liberal and progressive causes around the world, making her a target for Islamophobic far-right conspiracy theories and the archenemy of the nationalist Gaojiang Zhao Yu of Penglai (who was one source of the conspiracy theories). The deaths of not only her but also every Muslim at a wedding reception, and only Muslims, forced the public to reckon with several controversial issues they’d rather not talk about: Islamophobia in the Reich, ideological radicalization by social media, the continued survival of the Angeloi ideology despite decades of government-directed and self-imposed deangelification, Holocaust denial, the paradox of tolerance and possible limits on freedom of speech, and the state of the eastern provinces, and many other issues. But the attacks didn’t end there. Several more chemical attacks targeting Muslims and later Jews took place throughout the city, culminating in a hostage situation at a museum for a World War II hero where the perpetrator was killed. Frankfurt was left reeling from the week of deaths, but its people had no time to rest. As soon as one crisis ended, another began, coincidentally involving the same team that took down the Frankfurt terrorist.
On November 9, 2015, thousands of classified government and corporate files dating back to the late 1940s were leaked to Die Zeiten by the X-Division, a branch of the Athanatoi dedicated to investigating crimes overlooked by the rest of the agency and also, apparently, massive government and military corruption. At first glance and to mainstream audiences, the information presented in the files appeared crazy and completely ridiculous, the stuff of 1990s conspiracy theories long since forgotten by modern conspiracy theorists:
-A giant cabal of Roman and international elites, including many government, military, and corporate leaders, led a group called Sentinel.
-Through the connections these individuals had within the group and with others, Sentinel wielded significant influence over the Roman and other governments, militaries, and economies.
-The goal of Sentinel was to amass enough power and eventually seize control of the world for its own ends. This would be achieved by using upgrades to Strategic Defense Initiative, which would safely eliminate resistance on the ground before it even started resisting.
-Sentinel was also a front for money laundering and illegal human experimentation for the goal of creating “super soldiers,” although the results of such experiments were not released. The only details released about the experiments was that they involved unnecessary genetic or cybernetic enhancements.
-Anybody who stood in the way of Sentinel or even suspected their existence was “removed.” Chancellors like Walter Scheel were toppled with scandals, and individuals like Abraham Green, Ragnar Beck, Anne Frank, and even Elisabeth Alexandra were outright assassinated.
-Gerhard Schröder was blackmailed into helping Sentinel impede efforts to prevent the November 9 attacks, while the assassinations of Elisabeth Alexandra and Anne Frank were orchestrated to intimidate Otto into compliance because he was slowly figuring out the conspiracy with them.
-Zolton Huicton was an Athanatoi asset, but nobody outside Mexico paid much attention to that because they were all focused on the previous point and he was long dead.
All this would’ve been laughed off as the work of a crazed anti-government fanatic had there not been so much evidence to back it up. Regardless, people still had their doubts about both the X-Division and Die Zeiten.
The small division had been researching Sentinel for the last 23 years, somehow staying under the radar all that time while having to put up with hostile senior leadership which at least three times ordered its dissolution. At one point, its main four agents were charged with murder of a government employee, conspiracy to aid and abet said murderer, high treason which caused thousands of Roman soldiers and Russian civilians to die at Chernobyl in 1986, and war crimes while fighting on the Soviet side of that same war. The division was dissolved and a national manhunt was launched for the four agents. However, the charges were dropped and a formal apology was eventually given to the four agents when the division was reinstated following a series of bioweapon terrorist attacks that were eventually traced back to Wilhelm Tesla, the CEO of Tesla Dynamic and creator of SVI. The mad chief executive was found to be hoarding more biological weapons in preparation to wipe out humanity and “start over with a new Eden.” After a shootout on a cargo ship he had made his hideout against the coming apocalypse, he was killed, and the weapons of mass destruction were destroyed. The division’s funding was expanded and its reputation fully restored, while its agents earned an almost folk hero-like following among their fellow agents. They continued their successes with the handling of the Blachernae hostage crisis and more recently the Frankfurt terrorist attacks, which coincidentally were mentioned in the Sentinel files.
Die Zeiten was also staking its entire credibility and reputation on publishing the story on its infamous front page. The 179-year-old newspaper had a tendency to put articles of questionable significance on the front page and sometimes report on news that was already weeks if not months old. By now, though, people had generally stopped caring about the order of articles and what was on the front page, considering it part of the newspaper’s charm. And when it got the timing right, its coverage was often top notch. The chance of high quality reporting hidden on Page 5 proved to be an effective marketing gimmick, somehow, as people picked up copies to read through since they couldn’t just glance at the front page like any other newspaper.
However, public opinion quickly shifted when the reprisals started. First, unknown assailants attacked the newspaper’s main offices, attempting to kill or intimidate the journalists and sabotage the printing presses to prevent further publication of the files. This failed, and the assailants were defeated by X-Division, who expected an attack and prepared accordingly. Another attack was carried out in the United Nations headquarters in Vienna, with the assassination target being the Roman ambassador Annie Schmidt. Again, X-Division predicted this would happen and saved the ambassador, driving off the attackers, though they couldn’t save Schmidt’s immediate predecessor, Ambassador Irene Doukas, a named Sentinel collaborator, from meeting a similar fate. Sentinel then used SVI to wipe out the KL base at Ramstein and an entire Kaiserliche Marine carrier battle group heading to Neurhomania, while RSB agents, in a violation of Penglai’s sovereignty, carried out a botched assassination attempt on X-Division agent Anders Humboldt’s sister, who was living in the country. In retaliation, Gaojiang Zhao expelled the Roman embassy and suspended diplomatic ties with the Reich, calling the Romans hypocrites and no better than him. All these attacks only served to prove there really was a Sentinel pulling strings. Following an Athanatoi raid on an RSB facility in Nicomedia, the remaining ringleaders of the Sentinel cabal were killed when they turned SVI on themselves, destroying all Sentinel-controlled black sites in a last ditch effort to destroy whatever evidence had not been revealed yet. Sole SVI control was turned over to the Kaiser alone, so there would be no repeats of this crisis.
In the span of a week, everything flipped on its head. Walter Scheel and Gerhard Schröder were indicted and put on trial. Attempts to arrest Rees-Mogg, the Varangian implicated in the murder of the Crown Princess, initially failed as the man had fled his estate one the news broke. The Athanatoi and local law enforcement agencies launched a massive nationwide manhunt for him, ending when enraged citizens in Lublin formed a mob and hunted him down, beating him senseless before turning him in to authorities (he was said to have not defended himself and kept apologizing for the killing even as he was beaten). Dozens of current and former politicians from all four mainstream parties in both houses resigned en masse after having been implicated, with some turning themselves in. The RSB director, KNMB director, Minister of Defense, Minister for the Environment, and Megas Domestikos ton Aeras were all indicted.
The scandal spread across borders too, with large parts of the Russian, Yavdian, Chinese, and Indian governments implicated. China’s Health Ministry and Defense Research Agency both saw their entire senior leadership arrested. Millions of Chinese were shocked the feared junta-era Unit 731 was not only still in operation seventy years after it had allegedly been dismantled, but it had expanded its illegal human experiments to the Reich, Russia, and Yavdi, with the support of those three governments through Sentinel. Zhao used the opportunity to bash the Roman government’s criticism of his regime, saying “a nation with such a large and dangerous parasite inside it subverting the world’s freedoms and liberties has no right to lecture me about corruption and liberal norms.” The United Nations ordered a review into the security of the UN Island headquarters, and a vote to move the headquarters to the new offices in the suburbs was fast tracked for deliberation. The Mexican government threatened to expel Roman and coalition forces from the country, with much of the political establishment enraged the Reich had propped up Zolton Huicton and his brutal regime for decades, but fortunately it did not follow through on its threat. It instead severed several trade deals and partnerships with the Reich, instead aligning diplomatically and economically with Kanata and the Eimerican Community. The Roman troops were allowed to stay for now in the interest of defeating MSC, but they were to leave as soon as the terrorist group was destroyed.
Back at home, there were now two trials of the century going on at the same time. The Sentinel files released previously unknown evidence directly implicating Scheel in obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy relating to the Wassertor incident and investigation, while Schröder was revealed to have received advanced knowledge of the November 9 attacks and (although blackmailed) let it happen to push through the Patriot Act, expand the powers of the Sentinel-controlled RSB, and pursue a war with Mexico to enforce regime change, on top of illegally lobbying for Chinese energy firms after leaving office. Schröder immediately confessed to everything in exchange for a reduced sentence. Scheel refused a plea deal, and the resulting trial lasted for weeks, with millions again watching the spectacle before he was convicted.
Although the RSB director and the Minister of Defense had already been indicted, the entire leadership of the RSB and half that of the Bureau of Defense were also indicted days later on charges of conspiracy and, in some cases, high treason. Riots broke out in major cities and had to be peacefully but forcefully broken up by local police departments. Death threats were made against named Sentinel participants who had not yet been indicted as well as others suspected as being Sentinel, including the Crown Prince, whose already low popularity dropped further. Wilhelm Karl responded by saying the allegations were baseless, and although he was not on good terms with his sister before her death, he would never have ordered her death like the “Sentinel traitors” did. Public support dropped for cybernetics and unnecessary genetic enhancement as they featured heavily in many of Sentinel’s military experiments.
The political establishment was torn apart by the explosive allegations in the report, forever changing the political landscape. Merkel was pressured to resign but refused. Despite a serious hit to her approval ratings, her coalition remained stable and the opposition remained fractured, leaving a confidence vote out of reach. To prevent one from being held in the future, Merkel and the coalition managed to push through a law repealing the Wilson-era bill, which restored the impeachment process in place before Wilson set up the confidence vote mechanism to oust Schmidt.
Pushing through such a major reform at this time, though, gave the impression Merkel was using the whole scandal as a cover to pass a secret agenda, which increased the backlash. In protest, much of the leadership of the CMU and SPR resigned, leaving both parties adrift. Merkel was expected to lose 2020 in a landslide to whoever the SPR ran, most likely Schulz, as the SPR was considered less tainted than the CMU. In addition, the SPR was really the only other choice for examiners enraged by the scandal due to the nature of the Ottonian system, which had allowed the four mainstream parties to become entrenched over the decades. With the KRA and FMP being themselves and the CMU obviously a non-starter, examiners wanting change had no choice but to pick the SPR as the “lesser evil.” At least it was like that until Thierry Baudet jumped into the conversation.
While the main four parties were torn apart by the scandal, Baudet and The Forum, which had done modestly well in the recent examinations, were completely untouched. Baudet held a press conference several days later in which he affirmed his commitment to uncovering the truth behind the report and holding everyone involved accountable. He did not point fingers or use the opportunity to gloat about his moral superiority over the mainstream parties, as many expected him to do. Instead, the image of the relatively younger Frisian man in a business casual suit talking calmly and reassuringly in his regional accent struck a cord with the enraged and confused populace.
Baudet’s and The Forum’s popularity surged in the days following his call for calm, and the coalition saw a massive spike in personal donations and membership registrations. The wave of new support was enough to elevate it from a minor political faction on the fringes of the mainstream to a serious contender, with five years to build up even more for 2020. It was the perfect moment for Baudet and his allies to begin integrating the disparate parties of The Forum into a single party. Now there was an alternative to the SPR that wasn’t just a lesser evil. With the mainstream parties still reeling from the effects of the Sentinel scandal, Baudet’s fifth party was poised to become a mainstream party in its own right, ready to make its voice known in the upper echelons of Berlin. An official announcement was planned for January 1, 2016, after the Kaiser’s customary New Year’s Day address to the nation.
---
Temple of Solomon, Jerusalem - January 1, 2016, 9:00 AM
The medieval synagogue, its beautiful dome a testament to the Second Empire’s architecture and its minaret-style columns (like those built for the new Hagia Sophia) and geometrically appealing wall patterns symbolizing the coming together of Europe and the Middle East, loomed over the ancient city’s downtown from its sacred perch on the Temple Mount. A podium had been set up at its entrance. Reporters gathered with their cameras ready. A few minutes later, Thierry Baudet appeared, and the journalists got their recorders and notepads ready, while curious passersby, on their way to services, stopped to see the spectacle. Thierry cleared his throat and began.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “Today, I’d like to talk to you about something very important to me. I’m sure it’s also very important to all of you. Let me put aside politics for a minute, because we’ve talked enough about that for now. Because what I want to talk about about is climate change.”
He paused for a moment, letting the reporters jot down notes.
“Yes, climate change,” Thierry said, “Our planet is warming at an unprecedented rate thanks to our actions. The science is clear. The coral reefs of Penglai are dying. An extreme drought has worsened the crisis in North Eimerica. In Gallia and Italia, wildfires are burn down entire towns, forcing hundreds to relocate, while their smoke spreads out across the neighboring provinces, causing respiratory problems in many citizens and turning the skies a deep red. The acidity of our oceans is increasing and killing our fish, hurting the livelihoods of our fishermen. Sea levels are rising, threatening our coastal cities. Just take a look at Rotterdam. This is a crisis. A global crisis that demands every bit of our attention.
“Yet the party cartel simply does not grasp the severity of this situation. Don’t get me wrong, as they do know about this crisis. It makes it even worse that they know about this crisis but only take token measures to stop it. They sign feel-good treaties and pat themselves on the back, but they don’t follow through on them or set very lenient goals they can easily meet. They pass environmental regulations, but they either roll them back immediately or don’t enforce them. They prolong the war in Mexico to keep the oil flowing when they could’ve wiped out MSC months ago and focused on our own oil, if not alternative energy. I don’t think they’re serious about this crisis. They’re more concerned with staying in power. The Sentinel leaks show just how far they are willing to go do do that. That’s all they care about now. Not your interests. Only themselves.
“To that, I say, no more! We are not going to let the party cartel continue like it’s business as usual as it has done for the last seventy years. After seven decades, it’s time we had new leadership in the Diet and Chancellery. We need a change in course for the ship of state. Before this world goes up in flames, we have to right the ship and put ourselves back on a course that respects this great nation’s many traditions and maintains the natural garden God gave us. Genesis 1:28 tells us, ‘Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground’. It is our sacred duty, our divine mandate, to protect His creation, because it belongs to all of us. And I am going to make this duty the pillar of the platform of my new party, Christenheit Bewegung.”
The cameras flashed again, and the reporters murmured.
“Now, what is Christenheit Bewegung, you might ask?” Thierry said. “It’s simple. We are a Christian meritocratic party. Only unlike the so-called Christian Meritocratic Union, we actually believe in Christian meritocracy, the idea that we can apply what we learn from Christ’s teachings to build a just and moral government which upholds our rights as Roman citizens and protects the environment we share. Don’t be intimidated by our name, which is only there to show our connections with the Christian heritage our nation was founded on. We are committed to maintaining the secular traditions laid down by His Majesty seventy years ago.”
In fact, he really didn’t like the name, but Emilio and Jacob insisted, and he lost the vote.
“Despite the name, we welcome people of all faiths to join us in our quest,” Thierry said, “It doesn’t matter if we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any other faith. We are all created equal in the image of the divine. We are all Romans. We all share the same world. So we should put aside our differences and work together to effect actual, lasting change. Thank you very much for your time!”
Thierry stepped away from the platform. The reporters leaped out of their seats and tried asking him questions, but he continued walking down the stairs and joined the other CB leaders. Emilio Vandenburg was the first to greet him, shaking his hand and patting him on the back.
“You did great out there,” the pastor from Naples said, “I see you took my advice.”
“I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, Emilio,” Thierry said, “That verse was just too fitting.”
“I’ll say,” Joel Ostler said, “Your tone could use a little practice. This isn’t debate team.”
“Joel, please,” Thierry said, “I’ve been doing this for a while, okay?”
“I’m just giving you advice, Thierry,” Joel said, “Because if you get on that debate stage, Merkel is going to beat the scheiße out of you.”
“It’ll be many years before we get there, Joel,” Thierry said.
“Can’t hurt to start practicing now,” Joel said.
“Thierry!” Sebastian Kristof said, walking over with a smile on his face.
They shook hands, Sebastian’s strong grip still surprising Thierry.
“Sebastian, I was just going to ask about you,” Thierry said.
“Oh, of course,” Sebastian said, “I was going to say what a wonderful job you did.”
“Joel and Emilio here already told me as much,” Thierry said.
“I did not,” Joel said.
“Where’s Jacob?” Thierry said.
“Oh, you know Jacob,” Sebastian said, “He’s down in Loango visiting family.”
“So how were the consolidation talks?” Thierry said.
“Buendnis C’s leaning in favor,” Joel said, “As for the Pirates, they’re dissolving.”
“Dissolving?” Thierry said.
“Yeah, I was surprised too,” Joel said, “But last I heard, most of the leaders were thinking of joining us.”
“That would significantly help our youth outreach,” Sebastian said.
“Speaking of youth outreach…” Josiah Burkard said, walking over to them.
“Yes, Josiah?” Thierry said.
“I closed the deal on the Brotherhood,” the professor said, “They were really impressed by my detailed integration plan and roadmap for 2020.”
“The Brotherhood?” Sebastian said.
“The Shepherds’ Brotherhood, remember?” Joel said.
“The largest youth outreach program and humanitarian organization in the eastern provinces,” Emilio said.
“As a matter of fact, their leader is here to talk to you about it,” Josiah said.
“Where is he?” Thierry said.
Josiah pointed over the heads of the audience near the temple entrance, where a young couple in their thirties leaned against the wall. The man had short brown hair, trimmed and combed back very neatly. It was a standard-issue military haircut, meaning this man had served in the armed forces before. His clothes, a regular business suit, weren’t noteworthy, but Thierry’s attention was drawn to the eyepatch over his left eye. The woman next to him, presumably his wife, had her blonde hair tied back in a bun and wore a long dark blue dress. She was on her phone.
“Peculiar guy, huh?” Josiah said. “I thought the same thing. But don’t mind the eyepatch. He’s a pretty friendly guy.”
Thierry walked over to him. As he approached, the man locked onto him with a laser-like gaze, analyzing each movement and observing his facial expressions as if looking for threats. Undeterred, Thierry held out his hand.
“Morning,” he said, “Nice to meet you. I’m Thierry Baudet.”
The man firmly shook Thierry’s hand and smiled back.
“Elias Anhorn,” he said, “Shepherd’s Brotherhood.”
“Ah, so you’re the man I’ve heard so much about from the others,” Thierry said, “You must be proud of your creation.”
“Actually, I was inspired by my sister,” Elias said, “And my wife set up the whole thing. I wouldn’t be here without her. Oh, I forgot to introduce her. This is Gertrude Anhorn.”
“Gertrude Anhorn?” Thierry said. “Author of The Fundamentals?”
“The one and only,” Gertrude said.
“It’s an honor to meet you,” Thierry said, taking her hand and kissing it.
“It’s all mine,” Gertrude said.
“You know, I’m a huge fan of your book,” Thierry said, “All twelve volumes of it. How our focus on unimportant ideas is hastening the collapse of the environment, how to turn our youth off the path of drugs and crime and onto a new purpose and mission, and the decline of our faith in today’s secular society…”
“Proverbs 14:34 states that, ‘righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people’,” Gertrude said, “I just wanted to remind our people of our founding morals.”
“I totally agree,” Thierry said, “A nation's moral standards are dependent on those exhibited by its leaders. And the fact is our current leaders have no morals.”
“Anyways,” Elias said, “I hope the terms we presented yesterday were fair.”
“They were more than fair,” Thierry said, “Thank you so much for your support. With the Brotherhood on our side, we can reach a much larger constituency than before.”
“I hope so,” Elias said, “We’ll need all the help we can get to take out the party cartel.”
Thierry smiled and patted Elias on the shoulder. “I like your enthusiasm.”
“Where we’re going, we’ll need a lot of enthusiasm,” Elias said.
---
Finally, after a long time, Chapter 454 is finally up! It’s been a while since I posted Chapter 453, and I’ll have to get used to working with this new layout, especially with my current situation. At least mobile no longer glitches out so it is unusable. Next up is the update I wrote for the first Fire Emblem game.
I like to think of Elias Anhorn resembling Congressman Dan Crenshaw, but not exactly. That’s where the similarities end.
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It's been so long, and yet it feels like it flew by. This update is precisely why you can't neglect some of your citizens; they don't care for it.
People don’t like it when their leaders ignore them. It’s the same in the Reich and in North Eimerica. And now those leaders pay the price of their neglect.
Seems the Nahua Spring is far more dire and dangerous with the amount of violence going on there. Now I know I made remarks on Command & Conquer Generals + Zero Hour here but I gotta say, the GLA-MSC jokes are going to be a lot darker here compared to ours, especially with the weapons they have in their arsenal. Dire times indeed.
Thierry Baudet's campaign is looking to be promising, like I said, I'm hyped for the Forum arc. Especially if we get to see more of that eye patch wearing fellow. Also that bit on Bin Laden's campaign was hilarious, one would wander if his party had won and him becoming a chancellor. That'd be horrifying and funny at the same time.
The MSC is shaping up to be a formidable opponent if the Reich doesn't stop them completely, it's been hundreds of year since the Sunset Invasion. After all, history could repeat if the signs and warnings are not heeded. Nice to see the Meskawis making a comeback though, shame the glory days of Pierremaskin are truly over.
Thierry Baudet's campaign is looking to be promising, like I said, I'm hyped for the Forum arc. Especially if we get to see more of that eye patch wearing fellow. Also that bit on Bin Laden's campaign was hilarious, one would wander if his party had won and him becoming a chancellor. That'd be horrifying and funny at the same time.
The MSC is shaping up to be a formidable opponent if the Reich doesn't stop them completely, it's been hundreds of year since the Sunset Invasion. After all, history could repeat if the signs and warnings are not heeded. Nice to see the Meskawis making a comeback though, shame the glory days of Pierremaskin are truly over.
Wow, I knew things were going to bad in the Eimericas, but it's quite scary to see how dire things are getting over there. It's especially sad to see what were stable and prosperous meritocracies and democracies fall into illiberal authoritarianism and massive political violence. Doesn't help that the Mexicanists actually seem to have competent and capable leadership under Zolin. Looks like this MSC will be a formidable and scary threat in the Eimericas for quite some time.
Zhao Yu and Wilhelm Karl both give me really bad vibes as well. I imagine those two will loom large over the upcoming story in one way or other, so I'm both scared and intrigued at what antics they get up to there.
Also, here's some fridge horror I'm wondering about, since you said Kestrel lived up to 2016 in his biography like the real Castro, what's his reaction to seeing Mayapan fall apart in his last days and making everything he did to unify it in vain? I mean, he already lived through Mayapan going through two civil wars before, so I could see him seeing this coming and using his wealth to get out safely, but I imagine his last days weren't as peaceful as his biography made it seem.
Anyways, great update. It's a great set up to the next arc and its nice to see an in-depth gameplay update that delves into how things are unfolding in the world. Looking forward to future updates and the things you have cooked up there.
Kinda ironic how you decided to give Anhorn an eyepatch, since I once thought about giving him Heterochromia while brainstorming his character, but this idea does fit really well with the grizzled and hardened war veteran look you went for. Anyways, great job fleshing out my character, he's pretty much how I imagined him. Looking forward to see how he develops over this new arc.
It's like what Baudet said, these are very interesting times for the Reich going forward. The political elite of the Reich and its allies is starting to pay the price for their power-hungry selfishness and the people demand change. Let's hope Baudet and friends are up to the task of delivering the Reich from this time of crisis, because things will be bad if they aren't.
Zhao Yu and Wilhelm Karl both give me really bad vibes as well. I imagine those two will loom large over the upcoming story in one way or other, so I'm both scared and intrigued at what antics they get up to there.
Also, here's some fridge horror I'm wondering about, since you said Kestrel lived up to 2016 in his biography like the real Castro, what's his reaction to seeing Mayapan fall apart in his last days and making everything he did to unify it in vain? I mean, he already lived through Mayapan going through two civil wars before, so I could see him seeing this coming and using his wealth to get out safely, but I imagine his last days weren't as peaceful as his biography made it seem.
Anyways, great update. It's a great set up to the next arc and its nice to see an in-depth gameplay update that delves into how things are unfolding in the world. Looking forward to future updates and the things you have cooked up there.
It gets worse.
We will be seeing more of Elias in the future.
Chancellor Bin Laden? I’d probably write Chapter 455 in the same style as the Anarchy chapters.
Don’t worry, I’m not done with the Meskwakis yet...
Yeah, especially Mayapan which was a beacon of stability and prosperity in a sea of dictatorships. And now it is no better than the mainland.Wow, I knew things were going to bad in the Eimericas, but it's quite scary to see how dire things are getting over there. It's especially sad to see what were stable and prosperous meritocracies and democracies fall into illiberal authoritarianism and massive political violence. Doesn't help that the Mexicanists actually seem to have competent and capable leadership under Zolin. Looks like this MSC will be a formidable and scary threat in the Eimericas for quite some time.
Interesting. It would be nice to give him heterocrhomia, but I felt an eyepatch would be more distinctive
I’ve got quite a stacked cast waiting in the Forum arc with many different loyalties and motivations, so prepare yourself for interesting times.
Zhao will definitely figure significantly in Chapter 455. As for the prince...you’ll see soon enough. Don’t believe everything you read about him in events I wrote 2 years ago.
He’d probably have left for Neurhomania when he saw the warning signs and used his money to get out as many people as possible and protect the young prince. His last days may have been full of regret for not doing more.
Better start preparing yourself for Chapter 455 then, because it will have even more content than this one.
Fire Emblem: The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light
(Note: This was done long before the English localization was announced.)Fire Emblem: The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light was a turn-based strategy role playing game released in China on the Rentiantang Famicom, known the Rentiantang Entertainment System (RUS) outside China, in 1990. It is the first game in the Fire Emblem video game series and one of the first RUS games to flourish in the newly liberalized Chinese market following the restoration of democracy in 1989. It is generally accepted to be a pioneer and progenitor for tactical role playing games, particularly in China, where many other Chinese RPGs (CRPGs) took inspiration from it over the next decade.
The game is set on the fantasy continent of Archanea and follows the story of the deposed prince Marth of Altea, a kingdom recently conquered by the brutal Dolhr Empire, which seeks to bring the entire continent under the tyrannical rule of the dragon emperor Medeus. Marth raises a resistance army to fight against Dolhr and take back his home, turning many former enemies into allies in the process.
The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light spawned a large number of sequels, adaptations, spinoffs, and other related works. Its world is expanded on in several sequels, though not all games are set in the same continuity. The game was remade in 1993 as “Book One” of the SRUS game Mystery of the Emblem (with “Book Two” a continuation of Marth’s story) and again as Book One of the 2008 Mystery of the Emblem remake on the Rentiantang DS. The events of the game were adapted into several long-running manhua adaptations, one of which spawned a much loved animated series with many spinoffs. Marth would also be the first Fire Emblem character added into the Rentiantang crossover fighting game Super Smash Brothers, allowing the franchise to reach new fans (even if the game was still released only in China).
Development
Development began after the completion of fellow turn-based strategy game Famicom Wars, with the theme of encouraging players to "see and enjoy a world from an RPG perspective". Zhao Jiahe, the creator and scenario writer of the game, described the idea of Fire Emblem as being a hybrid of traditional strategy games and RPG elements, with the idea being to create a challenging strategy game with a deep story and a cast players would be emotionally invested in. Zhao decided to give each character a unique name, personality, backstory, portrait, and stats so they weren’t just nameless units the player wouldn’t hesitate to use as cannon fodder. The pegasus knight Caeda thus is not only known for her high movement stat and ability to fly over terrain obstacles but also her charm and cleverness, which helps her recruit many former enemies to Marth’s cause; her personality is sometimes described as a heroic take on the traditionally villainous seductress archetype. The elderly Jagen initially has high stats to show his decades of combat experience but the lowest chance to increase those stats on level up, which makes him useful in the early game without incentivizing the player to rely on him. On the other hand, the inexperienced pegasus knight Est starts out with low stats but has the most potential to grow. The cavaliers Cain and Abel are close friends who constantly butt heads, with one trying to get over his trauma of being the only survivor of his old battalion and the other a shameless womanizer who eventually falls for Est and changes his ways. Marth’s design is based on common artistic depictions of Friedrich the Great, which also informs much of his character and the actions he takes over the course of the story, while Caeda’s design and character are inspired by Saint Gunhilda and Kaiserin Ida, and Jagen is patterened after Werner von Habsburg, Ida’s father and a mentor to Friedrich the Great. Even the final boss, the dragon tyrant Medeus, has a worldview loosely resembling that of Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kai-Shek, as he desires to rule over all of Archanea and humanity with an iron fist, putting dragons at the center of the world as they once did, before an unspecified event forces them to adopt weaker human forms.
If a character dies, they remain permanently dead for the rest of the game, with other characters acknowledging their death and the ending changing if certain characters died. If Marth dies, the game immediately ends in a game over. This gives the fates of the playable cast more weight and to reward love and care for one's units. This was also extended to some of the more important enemies like the chivalrous knight Camus, showing they were still good people despite being on the wrong side of the war. The idea was to break from standard RPGs of the time, which generally railroaded players onto a single path to not break the game, by ensuring that there was not only one way of clearing each map, and players could approach maps as they choose and devise their own successful strategies. Another consideration was to simplify the game compared to other strategy games of the era, to fit in with Rentiantang’s philosophy of producing games which anybody can pick up and play (though Zhao certainly made his games very challenging and frustrating).
Zhao wanted to create a scenario where players would care about the characters in a similar way to a role-playing video game. According to Zhao, while role-playing games had strong stories but limited protagonists, tactical games had multiple characters but a weak story: Fire Emblem was his solution, combining the two to create a fun gameplay experience with relatable characters. This lack of emphasis on a single character was intentional, to the point even Marth was not considered by Zhao to be the main character. The setting and characters drew inspiration from classical Greco-Roman mythology. During the early story draft, there were two dragons that acted as bosses, the Earth Dragon Gaia and the Water Dragon Neptune. While Neptune was scrapped due to hardware limitations (but would be paid homage to in sea dragons encountered in later games), Gaia evolved into the character of Medeus. The series' "Fire Emblem" appears in its first form as a shield with mystical and symbolic power. The artifact's title made reference to war and the power of dragons. The use of such an extensive story approach was a rarity in Famicom games at the time, which were still beset by memory storage problems. Multiple scenarios were also planned to alleviate the linear feel of the campaign, but this could not be managed due to hardware limitations. Such an idea would be occasionally floated over the next several years in many subsequent games.
Unlike most later Fire Emblem games, Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light was developed in a collaboration between the third party firm Intelligent Systems and Rentiantang Research & Development 1. Zhao once remarked that development was a small-scale affair which the team produced largely for fun in their spare time, and this resulted in having few resources to devote to its graphics, something which the team would later come to regret. Similarly, owing to the team's small size, most other members of the team performed numerous other duties beyond their main focus in its development, including optimizing the code and taking advantage of certain quirks of the RUS system so that the game could even fit on a cartridge. Zhao was interested in implementing a multiplayer mode of some kind, but due to the RUS limitations, this idea was ultimately scrapped. The team eventually implemented a multiplayer mode twelve years later.
Marketing and reception
Marketing for the game was very ambitious, especially since Zhao and his team effectively worked on it as a fun side project, but also bizarre. One memorable commercial hired an entire opera wearing medieval armor (some sitting on live horses as well) for a short performance of the main theme, while a manhua series focusing on Marth’s escape from Altea during Dolhr’s invasion was published to tie in with the game. The first episode of an animated series adaptation was aired soon afterward and was the first piece of franchise media to receive a German dub, even if it was considered so terrible it was hilarious (with such gems as “BUT MARRRRRRSSSSSS”). Despite this aggressive marketing push, initial sales for the game were extremely slow, while reviewers criticized it for its clunky and difficult to understand mechanics and unimpressive visuals. However, a favorable review in a major gaming magazine and positive word of mouth about the story saw sales slowly pick up, and soon kids and young adults all across China were talking about Marth.
The game not only launched the wider Fire Emblem series but is also seen as the reason why tactical RPGs became popular in China. In addition to popularizing the genre, it is also credited with pioneering multimedia advertising through use of the above live action TV commercial as well as magazine previews.
Plot
The game begins with a map of Archanea, showing Dolhr’s troop movements as they invade and conquer the other kingdoms on the continent. Scrolling text explains that Medeus, the ruler of the dragons, sought to bring all of Archanea and its human population under dragon rule in the past only to be thwarted by the peasant Anri, who wielded the legendary blade Falchion, a sword capable of killing dragons as powerful as Medeus. With Falchion in hand, Anri critically wounded Medeus, who retreated to his palace to lick his wounds and seek revenge. Now, several generations later, Medeus has regained his strength and tries again to conquer Archanea. He first invades the Holy Kingdom of Archanea, which under its Princess Artemis had provided Anri with manpower and political legitimacy, and slaughters all but one of its royal family. The survivor, Princess Nyna, flees with the help of her loyal bodyguards and sympathetic humans in Dolhr’s army. Next, Medeus turned to Altea and its royal house, the descendants of Anri. King Cornelius and his allies in the Kingdom of Gra ride out to fight the dragon army, only for Gra’s King Jiol to literally stab him in the back, causing the Altean troops to be slaughtered. Elice, Marth’s older sister, buys the young prince enough time to escape the castle, saying he is the only hope for humanity’s freedom.
Marth spends the next three years in exile in Talys, an island kingdom. There, he is trained in the arts of war by his elderly advisor, Jagen, and the few knights who escaped with him. He also meets a young farmgirl his age, Caeda, who raises pegasi on her family’s farm and dreams of becoming a pegasus knight one day, and the two become very close. The island’s peace is suddenly shattered on Caeda’s birthday. Dolhr troops land on Talys, the last human kingdom not under Medeus’ rule or allied with him. Deciding he done running while his subjects and knights sacrifice themselves for him, Marth rallies the Altean exiles and people of Talys to fight under his banner, with the hope that all of Archanea will be free of Dolhr’s tyranny. Overcoming the initial invasion force, Marth and his army set out for the mainland. As Marth’s ship leaves Talys for good, Caeda flies after it on her pegasus, having found a talent for flying during the battle. She insists on accompanying him.
Marth first goes to the occupied kingdom of Aurelis, planning on linking up with Princess Nyna and Aurelis’ Prince Hardin. The two royals are leading an insurgency against the occupation led by the pro-Dolhr Kingdom of Macedon. Marth’s arrival boosts the morale and manpower of the resistance forces, and Aurelis is freed from Medeus’ grip. With the kingdom secured, Nyna entrusts the Fire Emblem, an ancient shield passed down through generations of her family since the founding of her kingdom, to Marth. Tradition has it the Fire Emblem was to be given to a worthy champion who would save the continent in times of crises. Indeed, the last person who had been bestowed with the Fire Emblem was Anri, by Nyna’s ancestor Princess Artemis, giving him the legitimacy to rally the people of Archanea against Medeus in his time. Now, the Fire Emblem legitimizes Marth’s role as the liberator of Archanea, and his growing army is dubbed the Archanean League.
However, Marth and Caeda can’t help but notice the arrogance of the Archanean nobles surrounding Nyna, who act condescendingly towards Caeda for her common birth and look down on Marth as the prince of a backwater nation and descendant of a commoner. Jagen also points out that in the last battle, the Archanean forces refused to help Marth, emphasized by the in-game allied AI not moving its units to help the player. Many of these nobles also protested granting the Fire Emblem to Marth, saying it shouldn’t have gone to one “tainted with common blood.” They insisted on granting it to Prince Hardin instead, although Hardin respectfully declined. Marth is shocked by the treatment the Archanean nobility gave him, as he had been raised to believe Archanea was the cultural and political pinnacle of the continent, led by chivalrous and honorable knights. After all, the continent was named after the kingdom. But these men were hardly chivalrous.
The League’s next target is the Holy Kingdom of Archanea itself. However, their march is derailed by an attack from Macedonian wyvern riders, led by the feared dracoknight Princess Minerva and her subordinates, the pegasus-riding Whitewing sisters Palla, Catria, and Est. Hoping to escape the vicious aerial assault, Marth devises a plan to take a detour through the eastern Pyrathi Isles, currently under the control of a dragon vassal of Medeus. The Archanean nobles protest this plan, saying it is suicide to go up against a dragon at this point. A large number of them split off from the army and continue on the main route, where their incompetence sees them massacred by a waiting Dolhr force. The rest of the League takes the detour through the isles, killing the dragon along the way. Afterwards, Marth is secretly approached by Catria, acting against Minerva’s orders. Catria tells him and Caeda that Minerva is fighting for Dolhr against her will. Her brother, the cruel and ambitious Prince Michalis, murdered their father to seize the throne for himself and then took their younger sister Maria hostage to force Minerva to serve Dolhr. Catria asks Marth to help free Maria so Minerva and the Whitewings can defect to the League, and Marth promises to do so. The League storms the castle where Maria is being held and frees her. Grateful, Minerva and the Whitewings defect to Marth’s forces, and the aerial superiority they provide helps the League retake the Archanean capital and its palace, the Millennium Court. The grateful citizens of the city turn out in droves to welcome Marth as their liberator from Dolhr’s occupation, although the Archanean nobility downplay his contributions and emphasize their own and Hardin’s. Hardin again refuses to indulge them, giving Marth credit for the liberation. During the celebration, Caeda bonds with the Whitewing sisters over all of them being pegasus knights. Catria offers to train the less experienced Caeda in the ways of aerial combat, especially their signature Triangle Attack, allowing the player to land a guaranteed critical hit if all three Whitewings surround a target. Although Caeda eagerly accepts, she can’t help but notice Catria’s obvious crush on Marth.
The festivities over, Marth draws up plans to retake his homeland and reclaim his birthright—the kingdom of Altea. First, Marth invades neighboring Gra and defeats Jiol, who with his dying breath claims he was promised his kingdom’s continued independence and his subjects’ freedom from slavery in Dolhr in exchange for betraying Cornelius. Searching Jiol’s armory, Marth is disappointed to find Falchion is not there. Jagen theorizes Gharnef, Medeus’ second-in-command and a powerful sorcerer, took Falchion from Jiol. The League makes a giant detour to the desert city of Khadein, under Gharnef’s control, to retrive it. Before Marth storms in, he is stopped by the sage Gotoh, who warns him that Gharnef’s Imhullu spell renders him invulnerable to all attacks except the Starlight spell, which could be created by bringing two ancient artifacts, the Starsphere and Lightsphere, together. Gotoh asks Marth to travel to the Fane of Raman, an ancient temple housing dragonkind’s greatest treasures, to retrieve them.
Marth heads back to Altea and fights his way across the country to the capital, where he avenges his parents by killing the dragon sitting on Cornelius’ throne. The next day, a crowd of Alteans gathers in front of the palace, hoping to see their savior. Marth has doubts about appearing to them though, as he regrets having run away for the last three years while other Alteans laid down their lives for him. He believes he doesn’t deserve their support. Caeda reassures him, saying what matters is he survived those three years instead of dying in a blaze of glory and quashing humanity’s last hope against Medeus. She helps him regain his confidence, and he appears on the balcony of the palace to wave to his people, vowing he will free all of Archanea.
The League heads south to defeat Dolhr’s remaining human allies, Grust and Macedon. First, Marth stops in the Fane of Raman to retrieve the orbs. Inside the temple, he is surprised to find a little girl in royal robes. He learns the girl is Tiki, a dragon princess of the Divine Dragon tribe, a faction of dragons opposed to Medeus’ Earth Dragons, who like most dragons had taken human form to keep her immense power from mentally overwhelming her. Gharnef appears and attempts to brainwash Tiki into using her power for Medeus, but Marth repels his attack and welcomes Tiki into his army for her safety (and to make proper use of her powers). She latches on to Marth and endearingly calls him “Mar-Mar.”
Marth invades Grust, initially meeting little resistance. He learns Grust’s cowardly King Ludwik had immediately capitulated to Dolhr when the war began. Grust’s elite knights, including the elite Sable Order led by the general Camus, did not approve of Ludwik’s decision, although out of respect for Ludwik and their code of chivalry they did not question him. Nyna reveals Camus led the troops which participated in the invasion of Archanea and was personally responsible for her survival, though he arrived too late to stop the massacre of the rest of her family. He was appointed leader of the occupation and ruled over Archanea as fairly and honorably as he could, hoping to spare Nyna and its people from crueler governors. Nyna admits that in the two years he was in Archanea, they had fallen in love. Unfortunately, at this point Medeus had grown tired of Camus’ lack of brutality and deployed another army to kill Nyna. In response, Camus and his allies defected from the Grustian army to hold off the Dolhr army and buy Nyna time to escape, only to be captured and temporarily imprisoned, with Medeus himself remarking that only Anri was more frustrating to deal with. Noticing that Camus is again at the head of the Grustian army and the Sable Order, Jagen presumes he had been reinstated so Dolhr could again make use of his service. Nyna urges Marth to spare him on account of her feelings for him and being a good man at heart. However, when Marth engages him in battle, he finds he can’t change Camus’ mind. Although Camus personally disagrees with Ludwik, he refuses to defect, saying he would remain an honorable knight defending his country to the very end. Marth reluctantly defeats him. The terminally ill Ludwik surrenders, claiming he had only sided with Dolhr because Gharnef had taken his children hostage.
Marth holds a memorial service for Camus, where he praises the fallen general’s chivalry and devotion to his king and country even though he was ultimately in the wrong. After the service, Marth confides to Caeda he was surprised to see such loyalty and honor coming from Grustians, which he had previously considered to be cowards throwing their lot in with Dolhr to save their own skins, informed by Ludwik’s actions. In contrast, the Archanean nobles outwardly claim to be chivalrous and honorable but are really petty, snobbish, and downright incompetent. He realizes the war isn’t as clear-cut as he was led to believe.
The League travels next to Macedon, where Marth and his army fight through wave after wave of wyvern riders, ultimately defeating Prince Michalis. Marth meets up with Gotoh at a nearby village and delivers the spheres to him, receiving the Starlight spell in return. Gotoh teleports the League to the ancient ruins of Thabes, where Gharnef has holed up in an underground labyrinth to draw magical power from a mysterious source even deeper underground. With Starlight neutralizing his Imhullu spell, Marth’s army kill Gharnef, recover Falchion from him, and find Princess Elice, who had been held hostage in Thabes since Altea fell for her rare ability to use the Aum Staff, capable of resurrecting one dead playable character.
With no other opposition remaining, the League invades Dolhr itself, charging into Dolhr Keep where Medeus himself remains confined as he is still too weak to leave the palace. Marth engages Medeus in battle, and with Falchion in hand, the tyrannical dragon is killed. Alternatively, the player can also kill Medeus with Tiki, which results in secret boss dialogue where Medeus curses Naga, a Divine Dragon worshipped as a goddess by Archaneans, for thwarting his plans yet again.
With the war over, Marth returns to Altea to be crowned as king. He talks with Nyna about what they will do now that the war is over. Nyna says she will have to put the wellbeing and future of her country first, sacrificing her own desires in the process (as Camus is dead). She will move ahead with a political marriage to Hardin, recommended by the Archanean nobility. But she urges Marth not to do the same. Just because Nyna has no choice doesn’t mean Marth must do the same. She tells him to talk to Caeda now, before she goes home to Talys. Marth runs after her just as she is about to fly away, awkwardly confessing his feelings to her and proposing marriage on the spot. Caeda admits her own feelings and happily accepts. As the two embrace, Nyna watches from the shadows, happy Marth won’t end up like her.
However, Marth’s story isn’t over yet…
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In Mystery of the Emblem, due to the addition of Book 2, much of the story of Book 1 was cut, most notoriously the entire character of Wrys, an old curate, and his replacement with a single healing item. This has spawned countless memes and running jokes in the series.
In the New Mystery of the Emblem remake, the story is instead expanded upon, with all of the Mystery cuts reversed. New characters are added in optional side chapters (although fans harshly criticized how the requirement to unlock them was to get a lot of people killed), a new prologue elaborates on Marth’s escape from Altea and the sacrifices of the Altean army to buy him time (providing backstory for Cain’s survivor guilt), and more characterization is given to Caeda, Jagen, the Whitewings, and the hypocrisy of the Archanean nobility.
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In the Annionaverse, Book 1 was remade as its own game. It underperformed financially.
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Very happy to have this, I do love this series. Mar-Mar is still canon so we're all good.
Never played the series myself unfortunately, might get into it when I have the time. All I know of the series is that one of the games has the music 'God Shattering Star', and boy what an absolute banger it is. That said I take it this won't be the only Fire Emblem update right? Also the whole party mechanics in the game makes me think FIre Emblem will be the face of modern RPG for the Chinese while Mass Effect does for the Western World, particularly the Reich's, especially when it comes to memorable characters. Maybe in the Mass Effect games there will be FE easter eggs thrown in to pay tribute to the series
Great start to the Fire Emblem summaries. I haven't played these games before, but this does sound like quite an starting impressive plot for this series, looking forward to your take on the later games.
I really enjoyed the segments on the game's development, marketing and in universe reception, it's nice to get some analysis for creative decsions made during the game development and I like the detail about Marth, Ceada and Jurgen having real life inspirations from Fredrich the Great, Ida and Werner von Habsburg. Makes me more excited about a mini flashback arc to the Restoration fleshing out those characters, that would be fun to see in the future.
It was nice to see the Annionaverse referenced towards the end as well and get a look into their culture, even if it was a little brief here.
I also noticed you seem to be skipping FE2 and going straight to FE3 in the table of contents as well, probably do to the fact that FE3 continues Marth's story while FE2 doesn't despite having some cameo characters (and I imagine a certain cameo regarding a previous FE1 enemy is a spoiler for FE3). Does that mean you'll be doing these FE summaries out of releasing order and will come to FE2 and its remake or will you moving on with the interludes?
I really enjoyed the segments on the game's development, marketing and in universe reception, it's nice to get some analysis for creative decsions made during the game development and I like the detail about Marth, Ceada and Jurgen having real life inspirations from Fredrich the Great, Ida and Werner von Habsburg. Makes me more excited about a mini flashback arc to the Restoration fleshing out those characters, that would be fun to see in the future.
It was nice to see the Annionaverse referenced towards the end as well and get a look into their culture, even if it was a little brief here.
I also noticed you seem to be skipping FE2 and going straight to FE3 in the table of contents as well, probably do to the fact that FE3 continues Marth's story while FE2 doesn't despite having some cameo characters (and I imagine a certain cameo regarding a previous FE1 enemy is a spoiler for FE3). Does that mean you'll be doing these FE summaries out of releasing order and will come to FE2 and its remake or will you moving on with the interludes?
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Tiki will have some other endearing nicknames for future characters as well!
Yes, God Shattering Star is an amazing track, but unfortunately in the summary for its game I may have had to replace it with another track, although I feel it’s equally as good.Never played the series myself unfortunately, might get into it when I have the time. All I know of the series is that one of the games has the music 'God Shattering Star', and boy what an absolute banger it is. That said I take it this won't be the only Fire Emblem update right? Also the whole party mechanics in the game makes me think FIre Emblem will be the face of modern RPG for the Chinese while Mass Effect does for the Western World, particularly the Reich's, especially when it comes to memorable characters. Maybe in the Mass Effect games there will be FE easter eggs thrown in to pay tribute to the series
In real life, FE did inspire a lot of the JRPG genre so I imagine it will be the same here as it dips into both the classical JRPG format and the tactical RPG genre. It’ll inspire future games to devote more time and effort to story as well as gameplay.
Those easter eggs sound fun. Especially with the crossover events, promotional tie ins, and memes I have planned for future games. There will be an update for every game as well as two spinoff ones.
Honestly, these summaries are quite close to their original games, as I focused more on character moments and backstory instead of the plot itself. That will change the later we get in the series, to the point where I start explaining some gameplay mechanics as well.
I also wanted to show what goes into making these games, who made them, why they did what they did, and what bad decisions they made, if any. Such a bad decision will be apparent in the meta information for the next game.
I’m definitely considering flashbacks for them at some point.
Future entries will have more detailed looks at the Annionaverse versions as well.
I am going to come back to Gaiden later since my write up is now more focused on the remake than the original and there are major tie ins with Awakening and the game I wrote to replace Fates. It would make more sense to put the write up at the point where the remake was released instead of here. Everything else will be released in their original order.
As a heads up, I may start posting subsequent updates twice a week, perhaps on Wednesdays as well as Saturdays. I don’t want to drag these out over maybe 18 weeks.
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By the way, a quick question. I posted this update with the main theme music of the first game. Would you prefer me posting main themes for all games or just appropriate tracks from each of them?
I’ll also post sprites and portraits of main characters starting from the next game.
I’ll also post sprites and portraits of main characters starting from the next game.
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Wouldn't mind hearing music other than the main themes tbh, especially since Fire Emblem has lot of really good soundtracks throughout each game. Plus there are some games where I think where a certain song would be more appropriate than the main theme and could encourage readers that haven't played the games to checkout the soundtracks themselves, like the credits theme for Echoes for example, though this is my personal preference.
Appropriate tracks might be more work, but also better for the reading.
I am thinking of using Prelude from Awakening to represent it and symbolize a new beginning for the franchise. For games which don’t exist or were significantly changed, like Fates and Pokemon Conquest, I might use tracks from previous games. I do like your idea for Echoes since its soundtrack is amazing. Although the closing credits might be a bit much, I might put the opening credits or March to Deliverance.
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Yep, I’ll definitely put in non-main theme tracks then, but I may also keep the main themes in addition to them to show how it evolved over the years. Definitely not using the main theme for Three Houses in this case since it’s very different.
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You could have the main theme play for the Adrestian Route specially, since the lyrics is implied to be from Edelgard's perspective, with an appropriate song being used for the other main routes in the game. Then again, having the Three Houses theme play for the Black Eagles specially might put too much focus on them and take some attention away from the other routes, so I can understand finding another appropriate song for them that doesn't have lyrics.
I actually decided to just put the main theme at the beginning and used different battle themes to represent each route since they very accurately reflect the tone of the game when they play.
Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem
Mystery of the Emblem is divided into two sections, called books. Book 1 is a remake of Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light, abridged due to hardware limitations. Book 2 tells a new story set two years after the first book's events, in which Marth must lead a new rebellion while uncovering the true history of Archanea and the mysterious origin of its sacred relics, the Archanean Falchion and the Fire Emblem, as well as the backstory of the dragon princess Tiki.
Development
The evolution of Marth’s sprites and portraits from the original game to its sequel and later remake reflected the franchise’s improvements in graphical quality, as well as the prevailing art styles of the times. While his earlier sprites were more donghua inspired, his portrait in the remake aimed for more realism, taking greater inspiration from Friedrich the Great than simply generic classical Hellenic/Roman themes
Due to the increased hardware capabilities, the team were able to increase both the content and graphical quality. With the aim of encouraging new players to buy the game, the overall difficulty was reduced compared to previous entries. After the unconventional gameplay of the previous game, Waiyun, Mystery of the Emblem returned to the traditional gameplay used for Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light, in addition to continuing the story of Marth after focusing on different characters for Waiyun (who are referenced, mostly in the Whitewings’ dialogue, but do not appear). Mystery of the Emblem was initially only going to include original story content, but after consideration, it was decided to include an upgraded version of the first game for those who had not played the original. The romance between Marth and Caeda was expanded on as a refined version of Alm and Celica’s romance in Waiyun. As with all Archanea games, the series' titular Fire Emblem took the form of a shield inset with five magical gems.
The Fire Emblem.
New Mystery of the Emblem marks the first appearance of "Casual Mode", a gameplay mode in which units who are defeated in battle are not actually killed, but simply retreat from battle to recover in time for the next chapter. This feature was initially harshly criticized by many longtime fans (and even some developers) who felt it undermined permadeath as one of if not the most important staples of the series. New Mystery was the seventh game to make use of the save data transfer mechanic, which allowed completed save data from Book 1 to influence story and gamplay of Book 2. This feature had been used for every pair of games since the sixth installment in the series, The Binding Blade. In addition, using the dual slot feature of the original DS and DS Lite allows data to be transferred from the GBA games, although it is mostly just extra concept art and some items.
Development of the remake began during the development of the previous game, Radiant Dawn, and lasted roughly eighteen months. After years of repeated financial failures, Intelligent Systems decided to remake Mystery of the Emblem, at that point the series’ most profitable and popular game, for new audiences who did not have access to the original hardware. Developers also wanted players outside China to experience Marth’s story for the first time without resorting to emulators and fan translations. The team did not see it as a remake but rather as a remaster of the original on a new and superior platform with modern mechanics. The most difficult part was balancing new innovations in gameplay with the original version’s atmosphere. Numerous new features were added, such as displays for movement and attack range as in the Tellius games. Expanded difficulty options and tutorials were also added to accommodate for both newcomers and veterans looking for a challenge.
Moving to the Rentiantang DS was a very big crossroad for Intelligent Systems. Having seen the declining sales of the previous two games, Intelligent Systems’ developers decided not to focus too much on an existing story. Instead, they listened to the criticism of the previous games’ difficulty modes, the Super Famicom-era user interfaces, and the lengthy and unskippable battle and overworld animations, which they improved on in New Mystery. Animations were de-emphasized and made more fluid. The user interface was updated to reflect the new system. More effort was put into improving gameplay and balancing the difficulty modes.
Marketing
During the Super Famicom's lifespan, Mystery of the Emblem was supported with the release of BS Fire Emblem: Archanea War Chronicles, a series of four chapters available for download onto Mystery cartridges, effectively downloadable content before it was mainstream. These four chapters told new stories featuring other members of the cast, particularly Nyna and Camus, in adventures leading up to Marth's own. In the remake, these chapters are included as bonus chapters separate from the main story.
The Fire Emblem animated series which had run its course through both Book 1 and Waiyun at this point was now extended to cover Mystery content and received a (hilariously terrible) German-language dub even as the games themselves would not be released outside of China for another few years. The highly popular Fire Emblem manhua series was similarly extended to tie in with Mystery due to high fan demand for it.
In 2008, Mystery was fully remade with the BS FE and cut Book 1 content included. In addition to its three Virtual Console re-releases in its original form, and featuring as one of the games on the Rentiantang Classic Mini: Super Famicom, Mystery of the Emblem was also available as a playable Masterpiece in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, allowing players to experience a three-minute demo of Marth's origins as a character.
Reception
Mystery of the Emblem has remained the best-selling Fire Emblem game in China ever since its release by a significant margin. Among Chinese gaming communities, Mystery is widely revered as the best and most popular title in the series, and was voted the sixty-eighth most popular game in the gaming magazine Famitong’s "top 100 games" list in 2006, with no other Fire Emblem titles appearing on the list. At its release it was scored 36/40 by the magazine's reviewers, equivalent to 9/10 from each of the four reviewers on Famitong's panel, a feat only since matched in the series by four subsequent games.
The remake was received positively by critics, who appreciated how new narrative elements and modern support conversations were added to the existing narrative, although they criticized the lack of characterization for many characters. While sales slightly improved from the previous two games, the proportion that came from outside China decreased by a long shot, and the idea to keep the two books combined on the same (slightly higher priced) cartridge likely impacted sales as well. Intelligent Systems believed they had lost the international market, which would have been fatal due to the constantly shrinking Chinese video game market. Rentiantang grew tired with Fire Emblem’s continued poor sales reports. With New Mystery being the fourth financial failure in a row, Rentiantang warned the next game had to be a major success, or the series would be canceled. While the original game had established the series, it looked like its remake would doom it.
Plot
The continent of Archanea after the War of Shadows.
Following the end of the conflict with Dolhr later known as the War of Shadows, the nobility of the Holy Kingdom of Archanea began the slow process of rebuilding the war torn country. First was the matter of the royal succession. Princess Nyna was the only surviving member of House Archanea left after the war, but the nobles would not accept a queen, even if she was instrumental in providing Marth with the legitimacy and resources to defeat Medeus. It was decided that Nyna was to be married and her husband declared king. They settled on Prince Hardin of Aurelis, who they believe was the true leader and most important figure in the Archanean League which defeated Medeus. As Marth, her only other realistic option, was already married, Nyna reluctantly agreed to the marriage. As his first act as king, Hardin reorganized the kingdom into the Holy Archanean Empire to restore Archanea to its former glory, proclaiming himself the emperor.
Two years passed, and the continent prospered under Hardin’s leadership. Meanwhile, the newly crowned King Marth oversees Altea’s recovery, implementing reforms suggested by Caeda. This earns him the admiration of the common people but the disapproval of Altean nobility, who also are frustrated at how the common born Caeda turns out to be a clever strategist who thwarts their efforts to sabotage Marth.
Two years after the end of the War of Shadows, the Holy Archanean Empire continues the military occupation of the human kingdoms which had allied with Dolhr, in the name of “guiding their rehabilitation and development.” However, many locals are dissatisfied with Archanean military rule. In the former Kingdom of Grust, an insurrection breaks out and threatens to consume the entire region, possibly resurrecting an independent and hostile Grust. Emperor Hardin asks Marth to help suppress the insurrection. Deciding to help his friend out, Marth leaves his knight Cain in charge of Altea’s defense and takes Jagen, Caeda, and a detachment of knights with him to Grust. There, he meets with General Lang, in charge of the Archanean military occupation, whose malicious and cruel attitude immediately disgusts Marth. Lang explains the rebellion is led by General Lorenz, the former regent for Ludwik’s young son, Prince Yubello, and a former ally of Marth’s. This makes Marth even more suspicious. Secretly flying across the region to Lorenz’s camp, Caeda learns the general is trying to protect Prince Yubello and his sister, Princess Yumina, which Archanea wants as political hostages or worse.
Caeda relays the news to Marth, but they are too late to stop Lang from violently suppressing the rest of the rebellion, which fracture upon Lorenz’s death, and then massacring the towns which were believed to have helped the rebels. Lang takes Yubello and Yumina into his custody. He orders Marth to go to Macedon, also under Archanean occupation, and suppress a similar rebellion there. A coup has taken Marth’s former ally, Princess Minerva, prisoner. With the help of the Whitewings Catria and Palla, the Alteans subdue the coup, but they fail to find Minerva. Marth also learns that Minerva’s sister Maria and the cleric Lena are also missing. The mage Linde arrives in Macedon delivers the Fire Emblem to Marth, which she says Nyna asked her to deliver for some reason. Marth is confused as to what really is going on.
Lang orders Marth to recapture Yubello and Yumina, who had been freed from their capitivity by the Talysian mercenary Ogma, one of Marth’s earliest allies. Fed up, Marth refuses to comply. Lang takes as an act of rebellion and orders his men to arrest Marth, only for Jagen to defeat them all and challenge Lang to single combat. Lang flees, but he vows he and Hardin will not forgive this slight. The Alteans move to rescue Ogma and the royals, who have been trapped on the coast. A mysterious masked knight arrives and helps them drive off the enemy. Marth recognizes the knight, who insists he only answers to the name of Sirius, the name of a popular vigilante who defends the weak and innocent. He agrees to help Marth. Catria arrives and breaks the terrible news that Altea has fallen under a surprise attack from Lang, who has captured Elice. Marth is now in open rebellion against Archanea.
Marth decides to end the abuse of the Grustians and attacks Lang’s headquarters in Grust. He kills Lang and frees the hostages he was torturing in the dungeons, including the mage Wendell. Wendell tells him the Starsphere, used to create the Starlight spell that defeated Gharnef, had shattered into several pieces scattered across the continent, and it is important they recover the shards and rebuild the Starsphere. Marth will occasionally find the shards in treasure chests and inventories of enemies.
Next, Marth crosses a bridge as the main Archanean army pursues him. However, as he reaches the end, he meets Hardin himself. His former friend has donned intimidating red armor, wields the legendary lance Gradivus, and is surrounded by an evil dark aura emanating from the Darksphere in his hand. All attacks against him are negated by the Darksphere. Marth and his allies escape by sea to the city of Khadein. There, he hopes to enlist the help of the city’s mage corps to pierce the Darksphere’s protection, but the mages instead attack. Minerva unexpectedly arrives to help Marth defeat the mages.
Gotoh magically contacts Marth. He explains there are five sacred orbs, of which the Darksphere is one of them. The Darksphere offers the user invincibility against enemies but also amplifies negative instincts, turning them evil. The only thing that can overcome the Darksphere is the Lightsphere. Gotoh requests Marth travel along Anri’s Way to the Ice Dragon Temple in the frozen north, tracing the steps his ancestor took to obtain Falchion. He sends the shapeshifter Xane to guide Marth and explain the history of dragons and humans on Archanea. The dragons once created a flourishing civilization. But suddenly, the dragons started degenerating and losing their minds. Naga, the leader of the Divine Dragons, found a way to avoid this fate by sealing their draconic energies into dragonstones and adopting human forms. This split the dragons. Those who followed the Earth Dragons refused to do so. Naga, the Divine Dragons, and their supporters swallowed their pride and became manaketes. The Earth Dragons, believing Naga and her faction were weak, attacked them and humanity. Naga prevailed and sealed the Earth Dragons in a tower in Macedon known as the Dragon’s Altar. To prevent them from breaking out, she created the “shield of five orbs” to maintain the seal and had Medeus, the only Earth Dragon who sided with her, guard the tower. Afterwards, she took pity on the surviving humans. She pulled out two of her dragon fangs, which she forged into two Falchions. She left one Falchion with the shield and gave the other to her fellow Divine Dragons Duma and Mila, who were exiled to neighboring Valentia after a dispute. She gave birth to a daughter, Tiki, and abandoned her physical form, becoming worshipped as a god. Following Naga’s ascension, the humans oppressed and persecuted the manaketes, fearing a repeat of the dragon war. Seeing the injustices being inflicted upon his people, Medeus founded Dolhr as a haven for manaketes, where they could return dragons to the center of civilization. Gotoh then gave Falchion to Anri.
Falchion
Marth reaches the Ice Dragon Shrine. Xane explains the five orbs had to be embedded in the shield for the seal to work, but someone stole the shield and orbs. Inside, Marth meets Gotoh, who gives him the Lightsphere and Starsphere. He explains Marth must restore the shield, or the Fire Emblem, to its full power to stop the awakening of the Earth Dragons. He entrusts Tiki to his care. The Divine Dragon princess had been kept in the shrine for her own safety as being a child she could not control her powers. But perhaps Marth could help her learn to do that, and with the power of her mother flowing in her blood, she can help defeat the Earth Dragons. Gotoh gives Marth his next goal, to recover the remaining orbs and stop Gharnef, who has been resurrected by his followers and is responsible for the abductions of Elice, Maria, and Lena. He teleports the party to Altea, where Marth frees his country and recovers the third orb. Captured Archaneans reveal Gharnef is going to abduct Nyna next.
Marth first marches through Gra, which is now run by Queen Sheena, the daughter of the traitorous King Jiol, who reluctantly allied with Hardin to protect her people. But the Gra soldiers lose their will to fight and the Archaneans abandon Gra. If Marth spares all Gra soldiers in the battle, Sheena forms an alliance with him. Next, Marth marches past Aurelis, ruled by Hardin’s brother. The king, having seen what his brother has become, secretly allows Marth to continue and gives him the fourth orb. When Hardin learns of this, he orders his brother executed and Aurelis placed under occupation. The king’s execution provokes massive unrest throught Archanea and Aurelis, and even in the capital many of Hardin’s knights mutiny. While he manages to stop the slaughter of the rebels, he is too late to save Nyna. Bishop Boah, who suggested the idea of marrying Nyna and Hardin, says Nyna kept pining after Camus, which made Hardin depressed. Gharnef gave him the Darksphere, turning him evil. Hardin had handed Nyna to Gharnef just before Marth arrived. Regretting the mistake he made, Boah suspects that Gharnef wants to use the noble blood of the four to resurrect Medeus.
Marth and his army storm Hardin’s palace. The palace bodyguards throw down their arms and surrender immediately. With the Lightsphere countering the Darksphere’s shroud, Marth delivers a fatal blow to Hardin. In his final moments, Hardin realizes what he has done and blames himself for being too weak to fight the Darksphere. He regrets hurting Nyna and causing widespread suffering. He makes Marth promise to rescue Nyna and make things right. Marth takes the Darksphere and puts it into the Fire Emblem, restoring the Binding Shield to its full power (if the player didn’t obtain all five spheres, the game ends there with Gharnef ambushing and killing him).
With the Fire Emblem reassembled, Marth travels south to the Dragon’s Altar, receiving the Starlight tome on the way. At the tower, Marth defeats Gharnef again and takes Falchion. As they ascend to the top, the Earth Dragons begin awakening, only for the Fire Emblem to put them back to sleep. Waiting at the top is the revived Medeus, now fully degenerated but with enhanced draconic powers, surrounded by the hypnotized Elice, Lena, Maria, and Nyna, whose life forces are being drained to power Medeus. Marth sends their loved ones to awaken and free Elice, Lena, Maria, and Nyna before the ritual is completed. This exposes Medeus to attack, and Marth kills him with Falchion again.
With the war finally over, most of Archanea’s noble houses are left in ruins. Heartbroken by Sirius’ words when freeing her, Nyna says her farewells to Marth and disappears. Sirius refuses to return to Grust and instead goes to Valentia. Sheena returns to Gra to help rebuild it, while a regency council is established for Prince Yubello. Minerva is crowned Queen of Macedon. As the heir to Aurelis was Hardin, the future of the kingdom is left in question, as is the matter of the succession in the Empire. Caeda humbly nominates Marth to succeed Hardin, if not as emperor then as king, on the basis he was the one chosen by the Fire Emblem to save Archanea from first Hardin and then Gharnef and Medeus. As rumors spread that Marth might become the next king of Archanea, the people of Archanea, Aurelis, Altea, and Talys voice their support. Finally realizing their arrogance and hypocrisy caused the chaos of the last two wars, the Archanean nobility swallow their pride and proclaim Marth king of the restored Holy Kingdom of Archanea, with Caeda as his queen. The nobles of Aurelis and Talys vote to elect Marth as their new king as well, while Marth retains his old throne in Altea. Under his reign, the entire continent experiences a golden era of peace and prosperity as it slowly heals from the War of Shadows and the War of Heroes, as the war against Hardin becomes known as. Marth’s tolerant and understanding policies, which reconcile humanity and dragonkind after centuries of conflict, earns him the undying support of people from all walks of life, who later gave him the epithet of the Hero-King. His wife Caeda’s political acumen, which laid the groundwork for the peaceful annexations of the other kingdoms on the continent in the future, would be revered and studied for centuries to come.
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In the Annionaverse, New Mystery was remade as a separate game from Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light and also underperformed financially. It was not localized overseas.
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