NationStates Jolt Archive

(All manner of insights and snippets regarding the republic. An effort to make Dra-pol about something more than the war against the capitalist Christian incursion. The first post, and some since, are concerned with past affairs and background- towards the end, modern news items appear )

Situated in what many know as North Korea, The Choson People's Republic of Dra-pol was dragged from sixty years of isolation when westerners (from Quinntonia) blundered ashore through the nation's eastern mists following a distress call sent out by a stricken boatload of refugees.

The resulting clash of cultures has lead to more than a year of conflict, during which more than two million people have lost their lives- Dra-pol's beloved Director Kurosian included amongst that number.

On forced re-entry to the world, the (sham) communism and its ruralised collectivist industry and agriculture could not compete in global markets, and the economy imploded. An economic recovery of sorts has seen much (read:almost all) of its potential benefit spent on the defence of the nation against what is refered to as "the Crusader Coalition" lead against the republic by Quinntonia.

This has met with much success, in that several members of the more advanced and wealthy capitalist Christian-based coalition have been knocked out of the war, but the costs are beginning to tell.

The DaKhiem (capital of Dra-pol) regime has thus far hidden the scale of the nation's agricultural hardship. Collective industries have proven ideal for supplying troops in the field as they pass from villiage to villiage- supply them with munitions, that is. The nation's forced ruralisation means that cottage industries usually devoted to food production are no longer able to act so. Fishing too has decreased, as the nation is under naval blockade- and that industry was never large anyway, due to the republic's formerly total isolationism.

The assassination of Director Kurosian, and limited co-operation with more open nations such as Beth Gellert, the African Commonwealth, and even PR China have conspired to destroy the cover-up of Dra-pol's true plight.

Estimates of famine-induced fatalities are in the area of twenty thousand, and malnutrition is pervasive. Military spending is estimated to have passed $3 trillion equivalent in the last twelve months (mostly in maintianing over nine million effectives in the field, and in creating a fortress of the northern region of Kanggye). With Hamhung & Hungman, and Pyongyang in enemy hands, and high-altitude bombing of the nation (the tiny capital was utterly obliterated) going unchallenged, there is little prospect for a budget reassessment.



(-This information gathered by nosey foreign journalists and broadcast on whatever stations happen to be interested. 's up to you whether your nation knows or cares.)

-delete-

New Director Proclaimed! Kurosian Lives!

Paegam, Sodu-su District

Over ten thousand feet above sea level on the side of Mount Kuro the infantile face of his father’s secret infidelity regards the whole world. It must stretch for a hundred miles! The boy mused, continuing to gaze at length into the misty below, until his tiny, pale hand was clasped by its equally delicate but characteristically darker Drapoel minder.

The boy’s nurserymaid disturbed his idle contemplation with a request from his ailing mother.
“Come now little comrade, your mother asks to see you before sun-down. The spirits will be back in the morning.”

Sighing, the child waved goodnight to the silent ghosts below as the misty throng gradually began their evening ritual of dispersal. Still clasping the slender Drapoel hand he skipped his way back up the stone steps behind, and the two characters made their way into the exposed but ornately carved corridors of the ancient palace.

http://images.usatoday.com/travel/_photos/2002-10-18-angkor.jpg
King Kuro the Third- The Demon King to Dra-pol’s Mongol invaders- stares out from the forbidden city, for the past eight centuries as has Koshiako for eight years.

“What does mother want, comrade nana?”
“She wants the best for you, Koshiako, and I’m sure you shall have it.”
“Of course! Comrade mother is wise!” The boy smiled back before dashing ahead towards the interior, leaving his maid behind in the weatherworn and over-grown outer corridors with all of their cracked masonry and creeping vines.

As young Koshiako entered his mother’s chamber he was startled by a flight of ducks noisily making their way past the window, heading from mountainside to lake below.

From the large, elaborate bed a pale, elegant woman smiled at her son’s brief alarm.
“Koshiako! I have important news from our friend Hotan.”
“Comrade mother!” The boy exclaimed happily, regaining his almost regal composure and advancing to the bedside.
“Koshi, I told you not to call me that.”
“But you are my mother!” Came his indignant reply.
With a half smile and a slight shake of her head, the woman, evidently a westerner by birth brushed meekly at her son’s jet-black hair.
“Our friend Hotan..” She continued “..he wants you to know that the time has come for you to serve the People’s Republic.”
“I am to be Director now?”
“Yes Koshiako, you are to become Director.”
“But I have not seen DaKhiem! I have strained my eyes from the top of the world, but the spirits bar the capital from my sight!”

For some minutes mother grappled with the beliefs of her son’s people as he questioned the wisdom in the timing of his appointment, and she repeated to herself that it was the only life available to him. She had been in Dra-pol long enough to absorb much, it seemed, as the boy lately nodded with acceptance of his newfound status.

(The observant reader may recall Kurosian’s disdain for his first born –the disgraced KII, and now..) ..The last Director’s bastard son, locked away with his European mother in the forbidden city of Paegam was revealed –at least to his immediate company- as Secretary Hotan’s shocking choice in the much delayed search for a fourth head of the Choson Peoples’ Republic.

Quite what the small, sheltered boy would know of the war and famine ravaging Dra-pol, let alone of how to stop it all, was not apparent. But then maybe Hotan was happy with it that way.

It is best, perhaps, that the public, and indeed the outside world, never see the face of an effective Director, nor know his precise identity or whereabouts.

DaKhiem, DaKhiem District, central Dra-pol

The little administrative capital of the Choson Peoples' Republic was at its most hectic since several thousand Raysian troops were dropped in at the height of the on-going Crusader War and consumed by Secretary Hotan's cunning trap. Everywhere small structures went up- offices for this agency and that, information points for one collective industry or another, Banat "spy shops" and military recruitment co-ordination centres- all erected by the enlisted labour of local collectives, under official supervision. Many of the involved engineers were Quinntonian educated, though their engineering knowledge was employed less than their inherent Drapoel administrative wits.

In the background loomed the heavily scaffolded jet-black superstructure of the Central Directorature, half re-built after the destructive Crusader blitz of the high-walled city. From atop the central monolith of this great complex a number of little figures, visible there all morning, suddenly released from its moorings a large sheet, uncovering what at first appeared to be yet another party banner. On closer inspection, the expected sight of a party chief’s flattered visage or else depiction of a nameless comrade’s valiant charge against the Hamhung line was nowhere to be found.

This was soon explained as the spluttering and squealing of the citywide tannoy called work to an unofficial halt that no one dared ignore.

”Comrades! Secretary Hotan speaks!” So said the whistling broadcast system. Drapoel gazes were directed towards the Central Directorature’s main building, where they fell upon the reportedly live image of comrade Secretary Hotan, glowing as it did across the surface of the giant video screen. DaKhiem was informed of the rising in the ancient forbidden city of a new Director Kurosian. A new Director who of course wanted to maintain the status quo, keeping Hotan on as Secretary of the republic, and finally vanquishing the foreign threat.

Dra-pol, you see, was invincible after all. Surely, now that there was again a true Director, things could begin to repair themselves. If we go hungry, said Hotan, it will be because of the foreign demons that haunt us still.

Meanwhile out in the rugged countryside millions of soldiers continued their marches back and forth across the republic, thousands engaged in hit and run tactics around Pyongyang, and unknown tens of thousands continued to sit in wait around Hamhung District. Kanggye prepared for new and more impressive parades, despite the fact that no Director was present to enjoy them, and hundreds of thousands went hungry.

http://netdefense2.free.fr/images/chine/armee_de_terre/type98/miniatures/type98-8.jpg
MT-3 "Hotan" Main Battle Tanks delivered across the Chinese border at great expense to Dra-pol and Beth Gellert now command the streets, threatening to obliterate the previously impervious imperialist tanks that caused such suffering at DaKhiem and Hamhung


http://www.softwar.net/J10B.GIF
Modernisation of the Peoples' Army Air Force too is an expensive affair, with almost six billion dollars going into acquiring new fighters.


While the invaders of Dra-pol may have long established world-beater economies and vast industrial bases, they are not fighting for their lives. The republic however feels that it is, and is willing to cripple itself, even to destroy itself rather than be murdered from without.

(All of which, in Drapoel, is pronounced "bum-p")

[moved to factbook: http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=123172&highlight= ]

[Reserved for possible fact-book compilation]

~This morning, a squadron of skycrane heavy lift craft took off from the Kinshasa National Airport, laden to the bursting point with dietary supplements, some medicinal products and African foodstuffs(mainly rice, beans, jungle fruit and some tins of canned ox and veal). They will be in China in a few days, where Commonwealth armor will escort the supplies into the Republic~

http://www.astudio.com/images/editorial/air/skycrane.jpeg

Secretary Hotan is quick to express the republic's gratitude to the African Commonwealth, though it is noticable that incoming food convoys are to be purposefully directed away from busy areas. The Central Directorature maintains that the republic's food shortage is due to western infamy- the Quinntonians and Happy Baseball Fans raid granaries, steal food and livestock, bomb farming collectives, restrict trawlers, and so on. The massive re-direction of formerly agricultural industry towards directly military ends is evident to most Drapoel only on the local scale.

The truth that most of Dra-pol's food shortage is due to a want of labour free for farming (a labour intensive pursuit in collectivist Dra-pol), and a shortage of good farmland (much of the best land is on the east coast- under Quinntonian domination), actually indicates that despite the military expenditure, finances are not all that bad. Hotan is glad of the incoming food-aid, but wonders if it might be possible to make a serious industry of it.

Of course imports to the isolationist republic are minimal- perhaps it is time to change that. The republic is looking -in addition to any aid freely give- to begin purchasing major grain stocks and other foodstuffs. Grain from China is likely to begin supplimenting existing sources, but other long-term deals are sought.

Interesting. Very interesting.
WWJD
Amen.

Dra-pol surges forth once again! With the liberation of Pyongyang, the republic is one step closer to unity.

Amongst the greatest advantages afforded to the Central Directorature following the liberation will be the massive boost to the industrial capacity of the republic. While Kanggye continues to turn out the tools of land-warfare, Pyongyang is prepared to step back into its aviator's boots.

Projects S-5 and Z-G-1 are likely to accelerate five fold.

Secretary Hotan was certainly satisfied with the reports handed to him. DaKhiem's rogue foreign contact was paying off well, too. The Central Directorature hoped to be processing nuclear material before the year was out.

Hotan would shortly be interrupted once again by Dra-pol's former naval command, and again he would dismiss them with no good news. He sometimes wondered if they were even worth keeping around.

Just get Z-G-1 rolling out those J-10 the Secretary told himself, letting out a pleasantly surprised grunt as he read confirmation that Drapoel annual military expenditure had passed the entire Japanese GDP.

The US military to the power of ten are we.

..several thousand regular soldiers were stood down from combat readiness on the west, and set to cutting out carefully chosen road-routes to the southern border. Some minimal home leave was even granted through the ranks.

The number of artillery guns and anti-aircraft defences being turned out at Kanggye exploded with the economy, and the increasing availability of labour for the expansion of industrial facilities. There were two evident priorities for military deployment- the defence of Kanggye, and the near siege of Hamhung, though Pyongyang was maintaining tertiary significance.

Up in the forbidden city, Director Koshiako's bedtime reading advance to Sun Tzu, amongst other literature of note (Maoist and Kurosian texts, the history of Hotan's commands and struggles, the history of Beth Gellert's brief near Stalinist experiment, and the surrounding war on imperialism..)

(ooc:Should I make note that little to nothing of this beyond the broadest basics (liberation of Pyongyang) is common knowledge? That is the case.)

-delete-
(out of date nonsense that would only serve to confuse)

DaKhiem

The Central Directorature, now almost fully restored to its imposing monolithic presence of old, swarmed with little Drapoel figures. The walk before Kurosian's mausoleum was being lined with statues.
Sulo, the first Director; Kurosian himself, held to be the greatest; Hotan, the Director that never was; Koshiako, the present Director, curiously depicted as a young man though the subject, hidden away in the forbidden city, could scarcely have been eight years old; comrades Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, Mao Zedong, Sopworth Igo, Graeme Igo, Saloth Sar, Nwabudike James, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna and Nguyen Tat Thanh amongst others already peer down on those allowed to visit the tomb.

Atop the massive central building cranes hoist into position ever more DRAR-1 surface to air missile units and 75mm flak guns.

DaKhiem, in the centre of the Choson People's Republic of Dra-pol, is to become the world's finest city, says Secretary Hotan. Great effort is being put into the beautification of the little walled city, capital of the republic. DaKhiem was badly damaged by Quinntonian tanks, artillery, and air-strikes during the Three Day War, and later almost completely destroyed by Raysian bombing raids in the early phase of the current war. Now it is the nation's centre of administration and politics.

http://www.chosunjournal.com/kimilsung.jpg
Director Sulo stands tall over DaKhiem

Kanggye meanwhile is to be the nation's centre of industry and militarism..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/165000/images/_166409_copy_of_missile_units_parade_in_pyongyang_300_ap_01-09-1998.jpg
The People's Army displays its might to the masses

..in a nation that houses most of its population out here.
http://www.geostravel.org/images/feature_splash.gif
Dra-pol remains as beautiful as it is forbidding

[bump for factbook- 2nd post]

Multi-stage rocket launched; flown over Japan

Launched from the mountainous far north of the Choson People's Republic, the large missile flew east, passing north of Hamhung and out over the Sea of Japan.

Several hundred miles out the rocket achieved escape velocity and left the atmosphere, apparently releasing a booster segment into the sea just a few kilometres off the west coast of Hokkaido as it did so.

Shortly there after the remaining section plunged back into the atmosphere, landing in the Pacific over three thousand kilometres from its launch point.

First Drapoel ground-attack aircraft flies in prototype form

The vast northern training fields east of Kanggye's industrial centre witnessed yet another step forward in the Choson People's Republic's armaments industry this day.

The KJ-1 Feda-Kwong represents a change in Drapoel military thinking, as the nation has never before deployed a specialised offensive weapon of this sort.

"The noble spirit of Drapoel none-aggression was not sufficient to deter the imperialistic intentions of the Christians and their running dogs" Said Secretary Hotan, appearing at Factory 5-1-2 in Kanggye for the KJ-1's fly-over. "And so we as a people scorned have no cause or intention to restrain ourselves in future interactions.
"Let the paper-tigers know, they have awakened a true wildcat in The Choson People's Republic!"

KJ-1 Feda-Kwong
(Attack Fighter 1, Winged Fire-Starter; some say it loses a little in the translation..)

Manufacturer- Factory 5-2-3, Pyongyang; Factory 5-1-2, Kanggye (some avionics/weapons)
Crew- One
Weight- 15,000lb empty; 26,240lb maximum take-off
Dimensions- span 9.9m; length 17.1m; height 4.4m
Powerplant- 2x S-4 turbojet at 6,200lb thrust dry and 8,000lb afterburning (each)
Maximum speed- Mach 1.05 at sea level, Mach 1.28 at altitude
Range- 850km normal load, 1,700km with drop-tanks
Ceiling- near 17,000 metres
Armament- 2x 30mm aviation cannon in wing-roots, 75 rounds per gun. 10 stores stations; four under fuselage, six under wings. Fuselage stations for 250kg bombs. Inboard wing stations for 8x57mm rocket-pod or 4x122mm rocket-pod. Centre wing stations for drop tank or 500kg-bomb, or DSJ-1 anti-shipping missile, or DXJ2 ECM pod. Outboard wing stations for DRAR-1 SRAAM.
Avionics and other features- DXT1 fire-control radar, optional DXJ2 ECM jammer and radar warning receiver, countermeasures, onboard CPU, laser ranging sensor, ejector seat, brake-chute.
Inventory- Minimal. With prototype testing in advanced stages the final design is said to be settled, and production may even have begun. Hundreds are expected to be built, and likely in a series of improved marks as Dra-pol works to catch-up with the west.

The brand new DSJ-1 is Dra-pol's first generation anti-shipping missile, and is thought to approximate the performance characteristics of the Chinese C-801 (Ying Ji-8K) on which it may be loosely based. Presumably DaKhiem is not 100% confident of its ability to maintain sufficient imports of the original weapon, or at least feels such an arrangement is uneconomical.


http://www.emeraldesigns.com/matchup/pics/a5m_1.jpg
KJ-1 in flight over Dra-pol

17/01/04, 04:30 Drapoel time. One for the record books.

History shall record this time as the moment that the CPRD entered the nuclear age, as DaKhiem's first detonation sent ripples across the nation, radiating from a point deep underground in the vast mountainous interior of the republic.
The detonation was the long expected and inevitible result of many years research and billions of dollars shared from the nation's now estimated sixteen trillion dollar yearly defence budget.
Several uranium import deals have long been official, but until recently little could breach the illegal Crusader blockade of the republic.
Speculation now abounds over the capacity of the recently announced KJ-1 attack plane- is it capable of deploying small nuclear weapons, indeed is the republic yet capable of producing such compact weapons?

Second apparent missile test goes well

After a recent multi-stage missile launch ended with a multi-stage rocket eventually crashing down into the Pacific after a three thousand kilometre flight, Dra-pol made a second launch just hours before the announced nuclear test took place.
This rocket splashed into the Pacific more than five and a half thousand kilometres out.
..Why should Quinntonian Dra-pol, South Dalania, or Japan be worried now? Papua New Guinea is within range.

Testing continues

Though of course not reported in much detail by DaKhiem, the rumbling from the highland interior of the Drapoel Choson People's Republic hailed a second nuclear test. While the CPRD's first recorded nuclear test detonation has been assumed to have involved a fission device in the low kiloton range, speculation this time hints at the possibility of a boosted fission version probably over ten or even twelve kilotons.

The seismic event connected to the latest test came just hours prior to the launch from near Pyongyang People's Army Air Force Base of a third Drapoel ballistic missile, and the second two-stage system to pass 5,000km. The two sections of this missile splashed down in the Pacific, the empty 'warhead' section reaching to waters north east of the distant Marshall Islands. It appears that neither Dra-pol's first nuclear detonation nor its early missile tests were one offs, and that continued produciton of such items as are related to these things is within DaKhiem's means.

Commonwealth recon forces were more than a little nervous seeing this second test - It was a commonly held assumption that the Drapoel were fucking nuts, and nobody would like to see them with a nuclear warhead to play with.

Inquisitive powers in the CPRD, or more likely the Banat, will be aware that the Commonwealth has broken the Nuclear Test Ban treaty twice, once by 5 kT and twice by 10kT. Renewed interest in these programs has led to an abundance of knowledge in these 'forbidden' areas within AC.

Secular Party clerks has hinted that cooperation with the republic in the fields of ballistics and WMD dispersal warheads is not out of the question.

Drapoel interest in Africa had almost completely vanished since the return of just a handful of Banat fighters from the ill fated leftist risings in the Commonwealth. Those few men, arguably heroes (and/or war criminals), had long since been dispersed into other units, and the world had moved on.

Now the CPRD was interested in launching satellites, possessing ICBMs on top of its IRBMs, developing air-launched nuclear missiles, and possibly submarine launched weapons and of course the platforms themselves, and detonating thermonuclear devices. Co-operation with the Commonwealth seemed to Secretary Hotan a perfectly reasonable avenue for pursuing such aims, and Directorature staff were eventually sent back to Africa, aboard a less than comfortable merchant vessel, their mission none too specific.

While the clandestine nuclear weapon research facility near the Chinkawan(Angolan) border awaited the arrival of Drapoel personnel, the directorate was adviced to inspect the ADI ballistic missile catalogue (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=114383&highlight=). These IR/ICBM are currently the pinnacle of ADI rocketry, but a new ICBM prototype is underway that will exceed all prior designs, and Dra-Pol will be most welcome to pool resources with the Commonwealth to speed the development of this project.

hmmmmmm.

Hoo, boy the ISD assets inside the Manus Nigra are gonna be interested in this....