NationStates Jolt Archive

As it was quite accustomed to, the world had gone months without hearing a peep out of the Choson People's Republic of Dra-pol. More news about it originated abroad than actually in Korea, and this was so once again as the Igovian Soviets announced a winding down of their long-standing military support of the hermit republic.

This news had actually drawn-out the brainbug as comrade Director-Secretary Hotan left his domain for perhaps the first time since an infamous assassination attempt sent him to hospital abroad. Hotan was said to be making a personal appearance in North Yaman, where he hoped by his own impressive repute to make sure that trade connections with Lyong did not collapse in the same style as they had with India. Consul Pak Seung-Il remained in China, hopeful of aligning Dra-pol more with that power.

In the CPRD, the long feared conditions of an isolationism that would be enforced this time from without rather than within were already manifesting themselves in reality. A Dra-pol without Soviet backing risked losing Lyongian support as well and still was facing the possibility of continued shaky relations with China. This was a Dra-pol that would struggle to meet Hotan's ambitious interpretation of Kurosite Thinking and that probably could not match his industrial targets. It was a unified republic that would struggle to satisfy its newest members in the south.

It looked more like a natural home for Suloism.


Seoul University of the People's Republic

Yi Cho-Min was now a 'national' celebrity in the south. That she'd organised a student protest in Dra-pol's largest city and lived to do it again was indicative of Hotan's Kurosite thinking and in stark contrast to her likely fate had the Suloist Kurosian II not been imprisoned at Quinntonian expense.

Today she was the unwilling focus of a pitched battle on campus as students -with outside agitators reputedly amongst them- dressed in humble traditional Drapoel attire attacked a group of Yi's friends and co-conspirators in her anti-Da'Khiem demonstrations of past months. The skirmish was whipped out of control when South Korean students -and even university staff- threw objects at the attackers in an attempt to drive them off, initiating a widening of the fight, which soon consumed the large university grounds.

Many people were injured before the disturbance had passed, and it left a strange scent in the air. The Kurosites hadn't sent in the army even as South Koreans applied force against their comrades, Yi Cho-Min remained free to criticise the republic's electoral systems such as the Seoul Special Regional Directorature People's Liason Committee, against elections to which she'd demonstrated, and things were only getting worse as the long period of economic growth drew to an unspectacular end.

It was now being whispered that the students attacking Yi's ilk chose to identify them with Suloist teaching in contrast to the official Kurosite line walked by the government. Tales from Africa speaking of a Suloist outpost surviving there only fed this sort of talk.

tag

"'We must have faith in the masses and we must have faith in the party' is that not so, comrade intellectuals?"
Kang Soon-Gi, so recently a timid recruit of the over-stretched state security authorities and one embarrassed by his personal failure to spot the signs of dissent in the student body of which he was part, now reassured his countryfolk in a less than fully loving tone. The major shortfall in recruitment of willing southerners into the Unified People's Army and other such agencies had made it possible for even such historic failures as Kang to advance, and the weedy young southern man now found himself in (rotational) charge of a work detail near the 38th parallel.
Now a Sub-Lieutenant in the Banat's fighting wing, the Red Bamboo, Kang's rhetorical questions asked of the gathered civilians well suited an officer in the internal security agency that already had an answer for everything it was legal to ask.
But this wasn't an interrogation cell at Facility 10 or such like, rather a stretch of what once had been no-man's land dividing north from south, and Kang's audience was not a political prisoner but a lot of local civilians shuddering in the early morning Korean drizzle.

Faith in the masses -that was they themselves- and faith in the Party -that was represented by Kang and his uniformed comrades. That was a quote attributed to Sulo and published in Hotan's Student of the Kuro Revolution with Kurosite qualifiers on its Suloist composition. The implication was that they'd need every bit of it -faith- as the local intellectuals -members of the Kurosite class that included teachers and artists- were shepherded out in front of Kang et al, across the totally undeveloped land ahead... having just finished lending their keen help to the task of removing fencing and mine warning signs from its perimeter.

Kurosian, formerly Munsan, between Seoul and the former DMZ

Up in the old fortifications of the northern side of the 38th, 150mm and 190mm guns still sat safe inside their HARTS, now just part of a nation-wide defence scheme rather than a rampart from which to fall upon the south. But down here at one of the first towns to be occupied by airborne Red Bamboo forces during the War for Korean Reunification a good number of 75mm and 100mm guns and 122mm rocket artillery pieces were being positioned closer to the old southern capital. Perhaps a forward defence before the harder gateway to the north.

"...put-on your gloves now, and you will be issued face masks by the quartermaster. Wear them when handling the new munitions from Tunnel 31B. Dismissed!"

The young artillery men and women returned their officer's salute and marched out as if unphased by the irregular equipment issue dropped on them without warning. Any break to their regimented routeen was enough to quicken pulses, but anything short of armageddon would be unlikely to outwardly phase even these baby-faced recruits.

(tag)

[OOC: Curses, and thing looked so ripe for the Socialist Market and Unificaton-through-Referendum...]

TAGGEr.

As usual, nothing comes out of Dra-pol that doesn't end up, in photograph form at least, on the desk (s) of the Hindustani Foreign Ministry...all in all, very little. Refugees, of course, who are immediately given asylum in accordance with Hindustan's open arms policy to immigration, but no real intelligence. The arrival of a foreign ship on Drapoel shores went completely unnoticed, and as far as the HDF is concerned Drapoel foreign deployments consist of a few ambassadors here and there, not at all any kind of armed force, least of all in Africa...

When news filtered in from HDF paras that they had found a certain bullpup rifle on a handful of corpses of a certain Asian nationality, the Foreign Ministry was quite surprised. But it was assumed some years previous that Drapoel military presence anywhere besides the Korean peninsula doesn't exist, or consists of a few cold and battered soldiers scratching out a living as mercenaries or something.

And while fairly competent, credited with a number of successes, the Hindustani Foreign Ministry has never been quite up to the standards of, oh, say...Banat when it comes to human intelligence.

If Dra-pol ever recieved Hindustani military aid, it would not be getting any of anything. If a handful of 1938-pattern webbings used to end up on UPA soldiers somehow or another, they won't anymore. Parliament, somewhat more selective than the Igovian People's Soviet when it comes to regimes and their human rights records, is quite pleased with the Bedgellen decision to decrease military aid to Dra-pol.

China is currently arguing in the Parliament in whether to provide and increase aid to Dra-Pol.

The Chaoxin Proposal, by Li Li Shan will resume necessary funds for Dra-Pol, which Xiaguo before, had sent millions of dollars to the Dra-Pol government. Now that CHina is unified, it is time to seek allies. Dra-Pol, a powerful neighbor is now under the hands of a desperate government, and an unwilling people.

The Chinese do wish for a regime change in Korea and has pledged monetary and mutual support when China finds the likes of Dra-Pol, especially when the hostile Igovians are pulling their backing of Dra-Pol.

The Russian government has released yet another of its annual condemnations of the Dra-Pol government. Psychotic regimes which care more for funding their military in defense against an imagined threat than feeding their own people are a disgrace to the world. The people of Dra-Pol are much sympathized with, of course, for their plight is truly horrific, considering that the people must eat bark simply to survive, but the government is harshly condemned.

Oddly enough, the usual condemnations of the feudalists are far more subdued...

Having visited some years back as President of the ROC, Zhang is quite surprised when the Drapoel resume contact with the world. Having seen the pain caused by a centrally planned economy some years ago in Mao's china, he had expected them to collapse someday in a smouldering heap. However (and most probably in his dreams), an authoritarian but capitalist Dra-pol would be a great and helpful ally.

Perhaps the aid programme should be delivered with strings attached.

China's Ambassidor to Dra-pol, Hu Tai Ying has contacted the Dra-Polian government to hold talks in Beijing on Chinese and Korean relations.

The Chinese government wishes to increase aid to Dra-Pol, but does not know whether Dra-Pol would agree to several terms. A set amount and other topics such as trade, tourism, and the military are also on the long list in which the Chinese wish to improve with the Koreans.

Eight hundred bright red balls, each bigger than a person's head, hung in the air for a moment all at precisely the same altitude as if floating on a film atop some invisible suspension lying thick across the Choson People's Republic. Then they came back down together and were caught in perfect unison by sixteen hundred little hands demonstrating the harmony of Kurosite doctrine and the inate unity of the Korean peninsula.

Sariwon Number 2 School was putting on one of the finest amongst thousands of near flawless displays across the Republic as part of the regular and epic mass games. Its students were so well practiced in their long and elaborate choreography that their shining eyes found time to scan the audience during complicated movements, some looking for proud parents and admiring friends, but most in search of one man, whom they'd been told just might find time in his busy day to honour them with an official visit.

But the Director was nowhere to be seen. Hotan was busy trying to manage a small nation that had lost the support of the Indian Soviets and now faced being cut-off by its Chinese neighbour, upon which he'd pinned most of his hopes for future development. The short-sighted Chinese military was scuppering plans for improved Sino-Korean relations; and by doing so after the Kurosite administration had taken steps to advertise its hopes for trade and even travel, allowing in selected Chinese visitors, they were exposing the Central Directorature to alien stress that it the introspective structure was not designed to handle.

Around Korea, disappointment was growing as the beloved Director failed to show at most mass games events besides a brief showing at Pyongyang and Da'Khiem's mainstreet parades in the morning, and Seoul's in the afternoon.

People were confused by recent talk of Chinese guests in Dra-pol, a land that had never welcomed guests, even back into antiquity, and even more confused by talk of people leaving to visit China: tourism was a totally alien concept to people who never dreamed of leaving their homes. The progressive Kurosites knew that they were treading thin ice with these reforms and the widely protested local elections in Seoul, but had fully believed in Hotan's industrialising measures, which required an unprecedented level of international trade.

Even with the horrid failure of Kosong just a couple of years ago, the student clashes in Seoul, the Igovian set-back, and the long rocky relations with China, the Party's Kurosite heads believed in Hotan's single-minded movement and trusted that it would run according to his design, even against the odds.

The wildcard of a Chinese U-turn was too much. The Central Directorature had to change its infallible mind yet again, and with the people so confused, the Secretary and Director looked less and less like the embodiment of popular will.

Hotan himself -both of those persons in one- appeared to be losing a battle for the first time in his incredible life. He'd beaten the odds to become Secretary of the Communist Party of Korea, made himself Kurosian's favourite, lead armies in the field against western invaders and vanquished them, and survived an assassination attempt sponsored almost certainly by the Quinntonians. Then he'd industrialised the almost medieval north, experimented with the west's ridiculous economic ideas, reunified much of his imperially devided homeland, won years of affection from his countrymen, released captured soldiers who had attacked his homeland under the employ of those he rightly believed to have ordered his murder, and tollerated the foreign administration of yet more Drapoel land inspite of cries for war. To be continually slandered by far less impressive foreign statesmen who would have died or sunk into obscurity in his shoes and never to be recognised for any of his works, and to see his nation blamed for instability was at once disheatening and infuriating. Dra-pol had been attacked more times than seemed worth counting, and had asked first to be left alone, and when that proved impossible only to be given what it was owed and to trade only for what it needed.

Had it not been for the decent respect of the Lyong nations, the Director's aching wounds might have consumed him long ago.

-----

It seemed unlikely, however, that even the backing of the Lyongians could save Dra-pol's Kurosite administration today.

Former Suloists had received greater than expected backing at local administration elections, but the important part of that was the belief that they'd received much of that support from a rising Neo-Suloist subculture that was strong even amongst South Koreans in the Republic, where normally votes for them would not have been expected to carry any serious reference to their Suloist background.

Mass games events had seen fairly overt ripples of dissillusionment as the clarity of purpose drained from them.

The Unified People's Army was crushingly disappointed by the loss of Soviet aid and the collapse of hopes that they would instead acquire Chinese high-technology and was full of discontent over being expected to serve a Republic involving itself in fickle international affairs without having the modern equipment to do it right.

Expensive infrastructure projects ground to a halt and left thousands idle as rail links to China were abandoned and industrial materials stopped flowing from there and from India; and as aid declined, it became evident after the work force's recent concentration on industry that last year's crop plantings were going to be insufficient, even though workers were now free to gather it... they simply hadn't been available in numbers enough to plant and tend it when externalised economic hopes were higher.

Southern activists like Yi Cho-Min had helped to foster discontent, but Hotan's tollerant reaction had both encouraged other radicals to try their luck and enraged many -particularly traditional and neo Suloists- and they in turn had increasingly taken their own revenge, worsening the situation.

It had come to pass that Kurosite intellectuals were being disposed of on a local basis, executed in place of or along side guilty enemies of the people and the revolution (theives, murderers, spies, and the like) as Drapoel soldiers and officers acted on their resentment for the outward-looking progress these people enabled. The last such schism in Dra-pol was settled by the staunch Kurosite loyalties of the Banat, but amalgamation -after that conflict- with the Red Bamboo has seriously diluted the Banat's clarity of mind and commitment.

Access points and telecommunications links were again shut down as the Central Directorature made desperate attempts to recover its position.

Hindustan, still smarting over the loss of one of its few destroyers (albeit an old Daring-class) to a Drapoel Hound submarine, continues to eye Dra-pol with an air of distrust and disapproval. But nonetheless, it is, as Parliament says, in nobody's interests to see people starve. Therefore, should news reach India of any trouble in this regard, Parliament will likely offer to send food aid into the CPRD.

Any news of more progressive-thinking individuals making something in the way of gains in Dra-pol will without a doubt be greeted with entheusiasm, but Mumbai remains quite ready to commit military forces to prop up the ROK should Drapoel armies try for the rest of it.

To re-affirm Hindustan's commitment to the ROK's soveriegnty, and partly to score some diplomatic points with Quinntonia, the HDF prepares to ship out No. 277 squadron, a survey unit equipped with a number of Pembroke, Devon, Canberra, and An-26 aircraft configured for photographic and signals intelligence work to the ROK.

The Chinese government once again demands a national reform in the economy, government, and the military within Dra-Pol. The Chinese this time has pledged 100 millions dollars to omprove agriculture and the education system in Dra-Pol, only, of course if the Dra-Polian government takes charge at a major reform. Democracy is not too far, it's just the wall in between. Knock it Down.

The Central Directorature under Hotan's wise administration is again proven correct in its decision to close borders and suspend communication with the outside world, or else tiny Chinese minorities would most certainly be ripped limb from limb as their mother country's slander continues. Unfortunately, there is no way for the Director to convey his success to a doubting public without sparking such outrage and defeating the point, and confidence continues to wane in the slighted Republic.

Da'Khiem continues to observe the foreign militarisation of southern Dra-pol (ROK) and hears yet more threats, and tollerates further criticism from inferiors as the Chinese think to lecture on democracy and to criticise the much more universal and intensive Drapoel education system.

No official response is given to anything happening outside, but within the Republic gunfire tells of the situation as Hotan's Kurosite establishement is faced-down by a Suloist resurgence and the world's criticism of the Kurosite Republic are put into context for anyone far enough from ignorant to understand that the current Director is the only potential ally ever to have held official power in Dra-pol, or to be waiting in the wings.

"...as if we needed proof, the leaders of the foreign world have continued to conduct themselves without dignity and with gross ignorance that would prevent any person from rising to lead a nation of men. We can see, then, that not only are the Chinese, the hated Japanese, the none-Asians, lead by animals but their people too are no better than small-minded featherweights. We have held out a olive branch and they have called it a spear, we have looked for doves and found ugly vultures. Comrades, our land of morning calm is chattering and squawking with the shrill mating call of these disgusting bird-like individuals that pollute it. The Kurosite experimentation is over, it is high time that we return to our true revolution and the teachings of Comrade Sulo who first drove the Imperial Japanese Army from Korea. This is what our revolution was built upon, and no longer can we contain and sugar-coat it for the approval of a world that will always demand more until they have achieved a full counter-revolution in our strategic peninsula between so many of them."

General Hozaro had never been the most commited Suloist, having at least as much time for the works of Kurosian and Hotan as for Sulo, and more than for Kurosian II, but the former commander of the 100th Assault Division, wounded in the course of his successful campaign down the east coast where his force over-ran ROKA positions with professional ease, was quite prepared to push the younger Kurosian and his ideas none the less. In fact, he was starting to come around to that point of view, in keeping with the general direction of the Republic.

The General was now at the head of a movement to reinstate Kurosian II as Director, calling him Our Resurgent Brother, though in fact he remained in Quinntonian custody. Hozaro planned to take control of the UPA, and to free Koshiako Kurosian (Kurosian I's illegitimate son by a western woman) for nomination as Secretary of the Communist Party.

Already defence units in the south were realising their position under Hozaro's re-deployed guns, while in the north the Director-Secretary made an historic decision on the part of his nation, as the Strainists were contacted and asked to expect incoming aerial, maritime, and railway traffic.

The Chinese Government wished to hold talks with Dra-Polian officials so that Dra-Pol's position can be understood.The Chinese government resumed aid to Dra-Pol, but had slashed the amount in half. Trade was still allowed, but the choice of Dra-Pol to abandone it had triggered a sluggish growth, and falling. The government will still send food supplies, and medical equiptment to Dra-Pol. The Dra-Polian aid package was scrapped, and a new one, proposed by several conservative officials resembled the aid package imposed by the former government of Xiaguo.

The Chinese government is requesting a special conference with Dra-Pol.


OOC:Hey, at least Dra-Pol has some things in common with Sino. read above, lol!

Quinntonia is ready to begin talks about K2's situation, but would want international recognistion of their right to hold him first. But, will settle for Dra-pol's, because even though they handed him over as a war criminal, as I recall, they eventually rescinded.

WWJD
Amen.

Comrade Secretary Director Hotan arrived in Spyr aboard an aged diesel-driven train bought from a foreign scrapyard and restored to working order in the Republic. The paint was still tacky after a new coat was added to restore the Drapoel blue and red, removed briefly to avoid upsetting the Chinese, for what good it did. Though his mentor, Kurosian I, bore the title, Greatest Leader, many Drapoel scholars had seen Hotan as their most iconic champion and chieftain. He left Korea for only the second time -having been driven out before only by doctor's advice and while quite unconscious after enduring three bullet-wounds from as many would-be assassins, all slain by his own hands in payment for their attempt- somewhat below his physical best, drained by the world's derision and the problems it had created and -with his wounds- less able to recover than had once been the case. But the last Kurosite leader's mind sparkled on as he regretfully abandoned the Choson People's Republic in order that it be spared civil war, a second collapse of Korean unity, and further poaching by the outside world. Dra-pol was left to the singularity of Suloist stagnation rather than be cast into uncertainty and the regression of imperialism renewed.

To his hosts, the exiting Director would at the first opportunity humbly address a slightly scattered speech along the following lines:

"As they [the world's governments] fail to recognise Dra-pol's changing circumstances, new administrations, and even to give its people any respect as thinking human beings, so the Drapoel have been forced back into seeing the Japanese as guilty for the butchery of the IJA in the early C20th, these Chinese for Sinoese racism and for abortive invasion attempts, and the west for carpet bombing and nuclear attack. Most Drapoel see all outsiders as guilty of -at best- supporting imperialism, and at worst of attempted genocide against the Korean people.

"So many nations -China, Quinntonia, East Islandia, Japan, and others- continue to talk of Dra-pol as a threat and a destabilising force. But Dra-pol has never in its history -which is longer than that of most nations- attacked another country, and makes no direct threats even to this day. Nothing at all to do with any foreign nation is even a single part of Kurosite teaching, not even a footnote. But now these [here Hotan swore in the still little understood Drapoel dialect, which supposedly was that of the of the original descendents of Korea's first people] have battered Kurosite progress to pieces and shattered with it all the ancient aspects of Choson society that we most closely associated our movement with, leaving only the Suloist and what minor historical aspects they favour. Not only has Kurosite Progress been stunted, but so much centuries-old reservation is condemned with it. Much as they have in the past created global terrorist networks where none previously existed, so the international elite have created an aggressive Korea where one never previously existed. I can not help but envy the impression that they have made in spite of my lifetime of efforts."

Dra-pol's temporary Kurosite communications blackout would almost certainly endure as a Suloist norm, and though they would likely not know it until news from Lyong, the residents of the ROK and of Hamhung were in more peril than had been the case since before Kurosian II's capture by Kurosite forces.

China is within the handful that recognises Dra-Pol, although China has decreased the monetary aid, large quantities of food are still shipped to Korea, including livestock, crops, and medical items. China still sees Dra-Pol as an ally, but with growing pressure from the Military government, the National Assembly had passed restrictions on Dra-Polian aid.

"Oh God..Those blasted North Koreans...Come out of hibernation to cause trouble again, have they?" muttered the tired Putin, as a summary of Hotan's speech popped up on his PDA screen. His eyes widened at the main points of the Director's speech began to sink in. From what he could decipher, there appeared to be a changing of the guard in Dra-Pol. Or rather, a restoration of a previous regime. Much to his embarassment, Putin did not really know what it entailed, as the differences of Kurosite and Suloist ideologies were unknown to him. This was partly a result of the simple fact that one man could not possibly know the intricacies of every ideology on earth, and partly due to Dra-Pol's extreme isolation.

The KGB had spent dozens of men and millions of rupees in vain attempts to crack Dra-Pol's shadowy government. But the paranoid regime remained hidden from view, foiling every KGB attempt at placing a spy in any important position. Still, these new developments, especially with the potential for a more aggressive Dra-Pol, forced Putin to consider one more attempt at figuring what the hell was going on in that odd nation.

He scrawled on his PDA the words "Initiate Operation: Find Out What The Hell Is Going On In Dra-Pol, or FOWTHIGOID."

OOC: A question...can you summarize Kurosite and Suloist ideologies for me? Thanks.

OOC: An updated history of Dra-pol and its modern ideologies!

Skip to the *** end if you're in a rush.

Well, Dra-pol has been isolationist since centuries before the rise of anything remotely resembling, for example, Russia, formerly being an absolute monarchy of a largely unremarkable Asiatic structure. It was unusual only for its success in repelling invasions, usually by use of terrain, advanced warrior culture, and world-beating brutality, driving out the Mongols, Japanese, and various Chinese incursions. That's just for the sake of a backdrop to what built the modern culture.

In 1931 one Emperor Wiman was head of what they were still choosing to call Choson Dra-pol, but the Japanese Empire was a presence mainly in the south and along parts of the coast, having been partly succesful in early C20th invasion attempts. The people were generally almost inately loyal to their Emperor, but that loyalty was not so ingraned as was their sense of separation from outsiders, and they resented the Japanese presence sufficiently for many to feel that Wiman was a failure (his basically medieval armies consistantly failed to drive the Japanese back, and gave ground each time the Japanese decided that they needed a new victory). A number of guerrilla bands established themselves in the mountains, and one lead by a man calling himself simply, "Sulo" became the most successful, raiding Japanese assets and making off with modern arms. In '31 they enacted an ultra-nationalist constitution that was somewhat ironically influenced in certain aspects by contact with Chinese communists, and Wiman's forces were sent against them in order to placate the Japanese and to make Wiman feel like he still mattered. The Suloists shot them to pieces, and many of them switched sides and took with them Japanese equipment. Soon they were co-operating with Red Chinese forces in bothering the IJA from month to month.

In 1938 the revolution was declared a success, and Sulo became the first Director of the new People's Republic, which naturally covered all of Korea. Unfortunately the western allies forced Japan's surrender before Sulo was done vanquishing the Japanese in southern Korea, and so the allies hopped in to take the surrender of Japanese forces there and prevent the spread of what they assumed to be pro-Russian politics. The Korean war followed with a lot more of an insurgency element perhaps akin to the later Viet Minh, as Drapoel in the south fought against the outsiders as hard as those in the north. Stalin's perceived cowardice and failure to help made him a hate figure in Dra-pol as western air and sea power lead to victory on the ground in the south, with Sulo holding out in the even more mountainous north.

This is why in AMW the north feels even more strongly than in reality that the south is its territory under foreign occupation, and that the people have been corrupted, brainwashed, deported, and bribed into submission, as well as terrorised by memories of carpet bombing and by periodic reminders such as the Quinntonian incursion at Hamhung.

Anyway, in the remainder of Sulo's rule, he attacked all signs of westernism and of empire: primarily the cities that had sprung up on the coast thanks to Japanese occupations and European trade missions. Hundreds of thousands were killed or simply allowed to die in forced ruralisation, and all links with the outside were destroyed, along with most modern technology. The capital was moved to the tiny fort of Da'Khiem, which had no live-in population, only migratory government workers. Drapoel children (home taught with approved stories and songs) were taught that the outside world destroyed itself in the great war that started with the Japanese invasion of mainland Asia and ended with nuclear war between the USQ and USSR et al. That was the main thrust of Suloism. Ultranationalism and fanatical loathing of all outside influence in Korea.

When Sulo died (cause and even year unknown, such was the level of isolationism), one Kurosian took charge of the Central Directorature. He tried to re-build the military using old Japanese and other technology left to rust by the Suloists, and likewise to partly mechanise agriculture in order to halt the famines that characterised Sulo's rule. He secretly travelled outside Dra-pol and even took a western mistress (known as Madame Kurosian to those few dozen in the know), who he hid away in the forbidden city of Paegam, and with whom he had a second son (the first became Kurosian II, the second -illegitimate son- was Koshiako). He read widely, and became influenced by Chinese, Lyongian, and European radicals, forming a new ideology slightly more in line with such things as Maoism. Dra-pol saw its first five year plans and the like as Kurosian attempted to build co-operative industries out of the medieval decay of Suloism. Drapoel agents even snuck into South East Asia and most famously taught tunnel warfare techniques to the North Vietnamese and Viet Minh. But under Kurosian I Dra-pol remained introspective until the Quinntonians landed (in the 80s or 90s?), and fear and nationalism clashed with curiosity and slightly naive missionary aims resulting in the Three Day War.

There, Kurosian thought that the Quinntonians wanted rid of him -and he wasn't entirely wrong- so went into hiding and put Kurosian II in charge, believing that it was his own reforms -making Dra-pol stronger- that worried the outsiders, and hoping that his more traditionally-raised son would be a less threatening face, since he'd halt industrialisation and aid to foreign revolutions (so KI thought that Kurosite Thinking was perceived as a competative threat, while more self-harming Suloism wouldn't be a threat to foreign countries). Unfortunately, his son turned out to be a whack-job (like only a doting parent could possibly fail to admit), and tried to hold on to power when it became evident that the Quinntonians weren't going to leave Hamhung. Kurosian I -with the help of the loyal Banat (essentially his Schutz Staffel with a Gestapo wing)- set-up an international incident, controving the interception of a Drapoel humanitarian convoy by Quinntonian special forces wrongly tipped off about arms traffic, and, through the shots fired by one suicide soldier of the Banat, saw that the convoy was destroyed by the Quinntonians. That was sufficient to engrage the Suloist KII so that he would attack Hamhung, resulting in a war that claimed over three million lives but allowed the Kurosites to march on Da'Khiem and capture KII, handing him over to the USQ as a war criminal.

Kurosian I was later murdered by the Quinntonians, and though it was never proven that they were responsible, the fact that they also attempted to kill his deputy, Secretary Hotan, and failed was sufficient to convince just about everybody that they did it.

Hotan put Koshiako Kurosian in the Directorature, making people admire him even more for not siezing power for himself. Koshiako almost ruined Dra-pol with further regression and confrontation with the west over Hamhung and the ROK, and Hotan was eventually forced to have the Banat arrest him.

When Hotan finally took over, he returned to industrialisation of several cities; experimented again with Kosong, a city made open to foreigners and unchecked small businesses, but targetted by western missiles and destroyed (another dent to Drapoel interest in the outside); arranged local elections in Seoul; opened-up trade with the Lyong nations; launched an earth satellite; and tried several times to kick-start trade with China, usually falling down thanks to old Sinoese racism.

*** Essentially, then, Dra-pol is a naturally hyper isolationist and hardy land that has had two choices in recent years:

Suloism that defied the hated Japanese and resisted those who carpet bombed and nuked Korea but cared so much for the ancient character of the Drapoel people that it was prepared to let them starve rather than corrupt it. This brought war with Quinntonia and over two million Drapoel and around a million other deaths.

Kurosite Thinking allowed in foreign diplomats, confined to diplomatic quarters; industrialised; handed over 'war criminals'; released prisoners of war; initiated foreign trade; staged wildly popular mass games; and allowed in foreign aid.

So far as the outside knows, it was the Suloist KII who started the war that killed millions, the Suloist Koshiako who attacked the ROK, probably Suloist Red Bamboo who tried to return the Quinntonian leadership's assassination favours, and certainly they who enforced ruralisation, slaughtered thousands of missionaries, and killed none-ethnic-Drapoel in Korea. It is now they who are taking back power and using Kurosite and southern intellectuals to clear minefields around the former DMZ.

In turn, it was the Kurosites KI and Hotan who the west tried to assassinate, it was the Kurosite Republic that they first dropped airborne troops into, and the Kurosite Republic that they forced to deal with the world when it'd been almost completely silent for two generations.

This is why Hotan is a little bit bitter (and bullet-riddled), and why the masses are forgetting and going back to what's now being called Neo-Suloist nationalism. If the outside gets lucky, the Neo-Suloists will continue the old hyper-isolationism and its just millions of Koreans who'll suffer. Otherwise it may be that they can't take it any more and launch the first war of aggression in Drapoel history, in which case it's a bad day to be Japanese/Chinese/Russian, depending.

OOC:Change of government, from good, to worse?

OOC: More like bad to worse....I swear, if I wasn't so focused on the Baltics, and the Dra-Polians weren't brainwashed to the point of rather accepting suicide than liberation...Sorry, my inner neo-con's flaring up again. ;)

OOC: I assume Dra-pol's navy and air force will be built up before any war of aggression against Japan, because otherwise we'll just end up firing missiles at each other; I doubt that Dra-pol has built tunnels all the way beneath the ROK and the Korea Strait.

I wonder what Lyong would do if Dra-pol went on the offensive against China/Russia/Japan?

OOC: Probably nothing. The Lyongians are smart, if Dra-Pol meddles with China and or USQ, no army in the world could save them. And if they mess with me, they mess with the Chinese. And if they mess with Japan, they mess with USQ.

-Ottawa-

Although Drapol hadn't factored into the Hudecian political scene for some time there was some talk in Parliament about the Hudecian position on Drapol. With Christine Lau now President and the socialists running the show in Parliament, the issue had been revived.

With borders to Quinntonia virtually closed to Hudecian businesses and Quinntonian economic pressure building, the Hudecian parliament sought ways to 'punish' them for taking such actions.

The gas lines that once flowed steadily south were now slowing down as the newly nationalized gas and oil industries were looking for new markets to replace Quinntonia.

But more importantly, the Bloc Francophonie saw the Drapol issue as yet another way to be a thorn in the Quinntonian side. Rising in Parliament the Bloc Francophonie leader announced his intentions to press Lau to open ties with Drapol and to begin sending 'humanitarian aid' to Drapol should it be needed.

"I and my party will do what we can to repair the Hudecian reputation abroad, and Drapol is the natural place to start, a place where both Hudecia has suffered greatly and caused great suffering." -Prime Minister Bouchard

China has vowed to destroy any Dra-Polian ships, and what ever is left of a Dra-Polian navy. China will honor the treaty with Russia. If China is attacked, both france and Russia are bound by the treaty to assist.

China has unified not only the government, but the military. The navy has aquired the huge Xiannese navy, the expert strategy of Sino, and the technology from Taiwan.


There is also a possible chance of China helping the Japanese in the war. Japanese officials are now on a plane to Beijing.

Hotan's visit to Spyr was well recieved... while the rest of the world pontificated on the homogenized threat of Dra-pol, Lyong had spent too many decades beside its neighbour to make the fatal error of black-white oversimplification.

The Spyrans had few illusions about the CPRD... during the latest Re-Unification War, a Spyran emissary had been allowed nto the nation and had petitioned unsucessfully for peaceful settlement: It had been to this emissary that the images of bodies from earlier wars, unearthed by the Drapoel and raised upon crucifixes, had been given... and thus through Spyr that such footage had first been released to foreign media. Nor had the inhabitants of Lyong been blind to the other horrors of Korea's recent history, at least no more blind than the rest of the world which lay much further field.

But Spyr had also experienced Kosong, the open city, where a fraction of Drapoel potential had been revealed, and the first steps seemed to have been taken towards a better future.

Which was why the Spyrans were ony slightly less bitter than Hotan: Every Drapoel forward thought, every move ahead, every opportunity to open and achieve progress with the Choson, had been literally silenced with bombs and bullets. It had bee to no one's apparent advantage (certainly not Drapoel peasants nor their Lyongian neighbours). It was simply a series of acts that could be described only by the word 'stupidity'... the open city bombed as if what it stood for: progress, change for the better in the CPRD, were the enemies of the West. Many who had wondered at Spyr's own tendency towards paranoia of imperialism hasd detemined that there could be no better cause thanthe example of the Choson and what had been done to them.

It thus could perhaps be said that, in Spyr, the CPRD was seen in black-white terms after all... the evils and horrors which formed the core of Suloist policy, and the flowering potential of the Kurosite path. In a land where the first hurdle of diplomacy was not identification of common trade interests, but convincing the peasantry that you were actually human and not an invading demon, neither was perfect... but only one left open even a chance for progress.

This was why Spyr watched with mounting dread as the internal battle in Dra-pol raged. They could not know anything for sure, but they knew what was at stake in a way no one else seemed to recognize: at every turn, the world itself seemed united in the goal of a return to Suloism in th CPRD, and the inevitable destruction that would entail within and without.

Still, as if denying the inevitable path being set in motion by greater powers, Lyong doggedly stuck to its own path of relations with Dra-pol, a path where every effort was made to paint themselves as friendly, cooperative, and respectful partners of the Choson... an attempt to stand as living proof that the world did more than sit back and shout out condemnation. Hotan, during his visit, was haled as a 'true voice of the Choson people' and an 'international statesman of the highest calibre'.

This policy revealed the Strainist view of politics in Dra-pol: Kurosite thinking must be made to prevail.

Being without a good source of information on the current state of affairs in Dra-pol, Parliament quickly faxes its attache in the Lyong Peninsula, requesting an analysis of what exactly is happening. After all, No.277 squadron isn't exactly the world's premier intelligence unit, being equipped with surplus equipment that would be something to talk about in the 1970's.

Therefore, after a few minutes of phone conversation, the Hindustani attache arrives in Spyr, looking for an appraisal of the Drapoel internal situation.

"Sir, he has been writing it over and over again on the wall, in his.....um.....excess."
Dr. Rev. Rod Parker peered over his glases at the prisoner. And what exactly does, "It's time" mean?

Behind a vidoe camera, watching the feed, in a room that doesn't exist, a man that never was watches footage that can't be. His cold, dread eyes look out, the dim light barely allowing one to see the crucifix tattoo on his right cheek. He nodded in agreement, it is, time.

WWJD
Amen.

The Yamani government, quiet on the international scene after the failed mission to the Lavragerian 'Free City', is surprised and pleased by the Drapoel champion Hotan visiting the Strainist People's Republic of Spyr. In an effort to answer Drapoel questions on continued Yamani oil support of the Republic, minor Yamani officials release a statement from Spyran channels. The absence of Director Jidoshin in the video would be noted, as the leader of the Strainists in Yaman is frequently present for any of the rare announcements from the Spearguard Command, the office of the leading government members.

Bowing to the viewer, the representative of North Yaman is short even by Lyong standards and is wearing a traditional white dress. Behind her stand several Spearguard soldiers in black dress uniform, silver chains at their shoulders marking them as officers. Two Yamani flags hang in the background, making it hard to identify the setting. The soldiers remain at attention as the woman begins her speach.

'Honoured viewer, I have the duty of speaking for the Yamani people on the subject of our brothers and sisters in arms in the great Republic of Drapoel. Recently there has been some question as to the continueing of support to our south neighbours, especially the oil trains that travel from the rich fields in the Southern Lowlands province.

These trains, protected by Spyran - Yamani air forces, are not without teeth themselves. All of our transport trains can protect themselves with their own artillery.The steel dragons encircle out mountains and plains, bringing troops to our outer regions and supplies to the developing Helekaru plain. But their military nature is simply to protect them from forces that have long threatened our Drapoel allies.

We humbly ask for the forgiveness of the Drapoel if our support of the Reunification was ever in question. Our trade, Yamani resources for Drapoel hardware, has ever been an example that the glorious people's of the never ending Revolution can stand together even when the world shuns their efforts.

As an example of our support, and in light of the growing international antigonistic feelings towards the misjudged Drapoel, Yaman is proposing a Strainist endevour to further protect the oil lines with an expansion of the current railway grid and sheltered railways near the Spyran - Drapoel border.

Thank you for tuning in and we will now be returning to regular programming, Freddy the Fire Toad.'

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Mioka' Ro

The shrine that gave the Yamani capital its name has been much changed since a Tordian expidition almost destroyed the sacred hill of the Yamani animsts. The enclosure that surround the Hill now contains the Hindustani, Spyran, Tordian and Drapoel embassies, as well as the Parliament buildings. The shrine itself is now a massive garden, platforms in the hill itself holding carefully constructed pools, beautiful rock formations and small traditional temples. The top is dominated by the ancient cherry tree long guarded by the priesthood, the animist administration that survived the August Empire. Few are allowed in this most sacred of places, though certain festivals see massive ceremonies of purification that many still come out for pass through the enclosure.

At this time the garden is empty, save a lone figure standing in prayer before the cherry tree. In his hands he holds a prayer paper, on which is written various words of peace and order.

The man hears the footsteps on the path, and knows who it is that approaches the top of the Hill. Soon they are standing behind him, two more figures disguised by the dark of the night. They quietly await his guidance, respectful of his private prayer.

Done, the man releases the prayer paper to the air, and turns to his friends. The face of Director Jidoshin is briefly illuminated by a break in the cloud cover, but the light of the moon is lost almost as soon as it comes.

'I am going to Spyr. With Hotan arrived, it may be time to discuss expanded shipments with him and Premier Harsk.'

'Sir, would this be wise? If Drapoel were to move towards war...'

'I am aware of the danger. We must pray that Da'Khiem remains in more moderate hands, and this may be the catalyst that pushes the Republic away from conflict.'

'And if they did? What then Eiji? You remember the Allied bombing...the Drapoel will want blood for blood.'

The Director is silent, and the Ministers await his response. soon, still in contemplative silence, the three leave the Hill shrine. The prayer paper, forgotten, is carried off by the wind into marsh night.

First Lady Aining Yeh became very interested in the Dra-Pol issue. She was the wife of Cancellor Yeh, and was also an ethnic Korean. She was chosen to head the Dra-Polian Monitering Team and issued a terrorizing statement to the National Assembly that Dra-Pol may attack within the next 5 years.

If the Lyong Nations are pulled into this, then China will have a hard time fending off both Dra-Pol, and the Lyong nations, who are located North and East of China.

First Lady Aining Yeh has requested a formal visit to the lyong nations, making the first stop at North Yamani.

Hotan's visit to Lyong not only dragged on without the Director seeking out many official engagements or even long leaving his official train, but continued to grow in terms of the number of party and military figures entering Spyr and indeed North Yaman too. They were joined by trucks, trains, and Preston light transport planes and a number of small merchant ships and trawlers, usually stuffed with documentation and rarely with currency, gold, arms, and other goods. A number of noted Drapoel intellectuals including the genius engineer Taka Oamarii-Il ((obviously this guy was one of those characters named before Dra-pol had a specific location in a realistic Asia)), who had worked on projects as diverse as the Republic's nuclear programme; Hotan's Black Dragon, AKA the Guns of Kuro, used to orbit Dra-pol's first satellite, Red Zero; and more recently had been working with the CPRD's ballistic missile programme. Several of his collegues in these programmes were already dead or simply missing without a trace.

When, a few days after Hotan's arrival, small numbers of S-12 (PAAF designation for the Miggen), S-6 (Flagon), S-7 (Fishbed), S-5 (Ultra-Shinden, a native light fighter more at home in the '50s and used as an expendable attacker), K-1 (Feda-Kwong, a native attacker akin to Q-5 Fantan), and K-2 (Fitter), and even two S-10 (NT-5 Cardinal) and a single S-11 (NT-4E Hobgoblin) approached the Drapoel border and attempted to cross into Lyongian airspace. The Secretary-Director hurried to contact authorities and suggest that interceptors be scrambled to, "identify the loyalty of the pilots as Kurosite or Suloist" and to, "escort or turn-back" the incoming PAAF aircraft, "as appropriate". It would turn out that the pilots were Kurosite loyalists, and that at least one -the powerful S-11- had suffered damage, one of its two engines giving off a lot of smoke: Hotan would say that it must have come from at least as far away as Hyeson Air Force Base. Around the same time, a Cholima Class assault hovercraft weighed down with dozens of Banat operatives and party workers attempted to come ashore in Yaman.

Hotan began to reveal that he was giving-up the Directorature rather than condemn Korea to the alternative. He insisted that civil war was inevitable, and that the only way to conduct it without raizing all of his material progress and souring his spiritual influence, and leaving Dra-pol vulnerable to foreign manipulation and intervention, was to deny the loyalists their Direction and as such hopefully make sure that the population accepted the Neo-Suloists rather than destroy the independence struggle entirely. Without fully saying it, the Director was clearly asking asslyum for himself and his most committed and important allies. Gunfire meanwhile rang through the mountains of Korea as more bridges across the Yalu collapsed to the rattle of integral, "safeguard charges".

This would be perhaps the first time that foreigners met Madame Kurosian, as the striking European mistress of the late Kurosian I disembarked from an incoming Preston diplomatic transport plane and shone in her white dress and shawl, with hair more than sufficiently golden and skin far too white for her to have a happy future in a Neo-Suloist state.

When news of Secretary Hotan's arrival in the Lyong Peninsula reaches the Hindustani embassy, a team of diplomats is almost immediately dispatched to go and interview him.

While he is by no means a terribly liked figure in Hindustan, Hotan is at least respected, and a large number of people would very much like to hear his opinions on the current happenings in the CPRD.

The increasing numbers of Drapoel arriving in the peninsula were welcomed as guests and comrades... if Hotan believed that the Neo-Suloists could not be resisted without causing wholesale destruction and hardship for the Choson, then the Strainist Party would stand behind that choice. To be consistent, the Party could do little else, having argued during the Unification War that defence of South Korea meant its destruction, while acceptance would minimize suffering.

There still remained much nervousness... Yamani oil trains were not halted, though their movement was much more cautious and guarded than in the past. The work crews assigned to the Drapoel border continued their recent spate of 'sounding' operations, ostensibly to check for suitable locations for subsurface rail routes, but likely with a more defensive motive in mind.
An SRA airbase in Tagan province was set aside to base arriving CPRD aircraft.

Matters such as entry visas were dealt with in a rapid manner... Hotan was asked to nominate candidates amongst his staff for temporary employment in the PRS Diplomatic Ministry, where they would be set to review the Choson crossing into the peninsula for suitability. Likewise, similar positions were proposed so that the oil train might return with Kurosite intellectuals as well as the usual Miggen components.

----

[OOC: Probably not directly relevant, but an ongoing evolution which ought to be posted somewhere]

Perhaps to bolster spirits before news that the Choson People's Republic might soon cease to be as comfortable a neighbour as it had been under Kurosite doctrine, high Party officials yet again increased touring Tord, Yaman, and Sujava, speaking of the need for unity in the face of troubled times and extolling the great leaps and progress achieved under the leadership of Strainist ideology.

In a rare radio address, the aging Daisu speaks...

"In a world of chaos, ever-changing, we must stand together. When heaven's winds and nature's torrents clash, we must seek unity and balance. We are comrades in an august purpose, parts of something that makes a greater whole..."

OOC:AH-HA!

Just to confirm, Dra-Pol is currently having a civil war? And the Kurosites are exiled in the Lyong nations?

-Ottawa-

With it becoming more and more apparent that the situation in Drapol was hastening on towards a perhaps brutal and long civil war talk in Hudecia about reviving ties with Drapol dies down.

Still, the Bloc were not so easily frustrated and attempts were made through the Spyrans to arrange a meeting with Hotan. Not expecting to be particularly successful however, the francophone party turned its attention to planning its moves in case Quinntonia or other nations attempted to invade Drapol.

The Chinese government ordered the Chinese-Dra-Polian borders to be secured in case of the civil dragging into Chinese territory.

China has also allowed Korean refugees to seek haven in the Korean communities in Northern China.

Although the Korean population of Japan receives equal recognition under Japanese law as other ethnicities, the Japanese Secret Services are still wary of Drapoel infiltration. To that end, Koancho increases recruitment of Korean operatives using extensive screening processes.

The Quinntonian government moves to put all their Southern Pacific assets on high alert, and issues a few orders to the troops involved, including a standing mobilisation order, stating that they must be no more that 45 minutes away from their mobilisation checkpiont.

From the Wetsgaard Line, Gen. Lee Gemby stares through his high powered binoculars at the opposing lines. The movements of this large militray gourp are being m,onitered most closely, and the political affiliation of its commanders is trying to be ascertained.

Governor Bishop Gerald Westgaard issues a full militia call-up in Quinntonina Dra-pol and begins a massive series of arrests of suspected Dra-poel sympathysers, to be brought in for questioning, as well as a re-check of all the underground detection arrays and listening devices to make sure that the tunnelling that they moniter is still in check.

Admiral William Hutt orders the South Pacific Fleet on full alert and begins to move certain elements into positions around Dra-pol, but far enough away to not make anyone too nervous, mostly in supporting roles of the ROK Navy and mirroring the Dra-poel counterpart. He also orders that stadard patrols of naval fighter and spy planes be tripled over ROK for the time being.

The Kenandruan REfugee army in ROK is ordered on full mobilisation, and is ready to defend their adopted homeland at a moments notice.

Quinntonian and Quinntonina DRa-pol as well as ROK diplomatic teams begin to try and make contact with the Central Directorate to try and get an idea of what is going on.

WWJD
Amen.

An order was given to the Chinese Eastern Fleet (Beiyang Fleet) to provide a defensive blockade west of the Korean shores as a security measure to prevent hostile Dra-Polian ships wandering into Chinese and Japanese waters.

The Quinntonina Fleet Commanders, especially Admiral William Hutt, contacts the Fleet commanders of the Chinese fleet and express that Quinntonina assets will not be entering the western zone that the Chinese are so ably blockading. It is also asked that the Chinese fleet and the Quinntonian fleet begin a standard communication protocal in order that there is no confusion or instances of conflict.

WWJD
Amen.

(Basically, yes, Xiaguo, that is more or less what is happening.)

In Lyong, Hotan and his loyal generals and workers set to screening their own number and arrange efficient and intensive systems for this purpose. More than that, the displaced Director goes so far as to furnish his hosts with sensitive information, revealing that efforts to track-down and engage with Drapoel agents in Lyong have resulted in a couple of failures as a handful appear to have shown Suloist sympathies. Indeed, a number have turned up dead, often shot with rare 7mm and 8mm pistol ammuniton employed by the Banat, or beheaded by bladed weapons after being deemed hostile to the Kurosites and their traditional allies. Others remain at large, Hotan grudgingly admits, and nobody can be sure whether they are now working directly under Suloist orders to commit espionage or sabotage, or whether they will simply try to escape back to the CPRD, as they are well trained to do. Their numbers are slight compared to those certain Kurosites may be caught admitting to in regard of the ROK or Japan, and even China, on which Da'Khiem has been keen to keep tabs.
The Lyongians are the only neighbouring powers given any intelligence on these matters, however.

The Kurosites are uniformly attempting to be as productive and respectable as possible in Lyong, with some offering to teach the finer points of the slightly odd Drapoel dialect, to speak on Kurosite Progress and Drapoel history or military experience, to teach the unique Drapoel martial arts, and so forth.

Hotan also from time to time, in the right company, will speak of the Republic's conditions and capabilities before his departure, warning that it's increasing isolation and alienation do not bode well for anybody. The air force, for example, has only three dozen capable light jet trainers plus half a dozen two-seat versions of Igovian front-line jets in use to move recruits on past the Zero-like piston-engine elemental trainers, while there are more than eleven hundred combat jets in service. This means that -without Soviet help, and now likely without the Lyongians and others, too- Dra-pol will find that it simply can not train large numbers of world-class fighter pilots, and will look to use its masses and its aircraft in less training-intensive fashion. He warns that training to fly an Igovian interceptor into battle is a a different matter to learning how to fly a one-way mission in a basic turbojet bomb with wings. Worse than that, the Suloists, he claims, tend to view the eleven or twelve million or so reunified South Koreans as corrupt and weak of principle unless individuals go to really remarkable lengths to prove otherwise, and at once will be prepared to sacrifice them either in war or to survive economic collapse and will encourage them to suicidal efforts on behalf of their families that may win respect for their sacrifices.

The Director warns that the trade links he helped to establish with Lyong will most probably not last for long, and that their closing-down will probably be a signal that the Neo-Suloists are fully established.

As yet, Hotan has not decided what to say to the Hindustanis, nor how to say it. His country is reverting to its pre-Quinntonian conditions, and without his respected presence as Secretary of the KCP, and his bullet-riddled middle-aged body sees him at his most powerless since infancy.

With valuable new information being released to the higher circles of Lyong Joint Command by their respected political ally Hotan, the Yamani Strainists have begun probing their Spyran and Tordian counterparts on a possible council to discuss the change taking place in Da'Khiem. The request for a gathering of the Strainist party is not made public however, all discussions being made in person by diplomats in Sithin.

Efforts are made to begin integration of Kurosite 'guests' into Lyongian society... various universities and the Strainist Revolutionary Army being foremost amongst those seeking to take advantage of this new source of knowledge and skill. The diplomacy ministry, concerned about maintaining at least non-hostile relations with the Neo-Suloists, also seeks out indiviuals who might assist in mastery of the linguistic-cultural intricacies and political environment that might soon make the difference between peace and an international incident.

The August Hall of the People, administrative centre for the Strainist Party in Sithin, is working madly as factions begin to align themselves on the issue of the CPRD...added to the debate on the expanding Euro-African conflict, which has already seen an official call from the daisu for SRA volunteers and Levy readiness, and the Party looks to be a dune of sand, a thousand grains shifting wildly but the whole seeming to go nowhere.