A History (Part I)
Unknown Region
December 31st 2019, 06:00
【Background Music: Beat of Destruction】
【Extracted from Video Game "Ys：The Oath in Felghana JDK Special"】
Skimming over the surface of the sea by merely meters, dozens of fighters, mainly reverse-engineered X-02S Strike Wyverns, are advancing westward. A close-up view reveals the new emblem painted on their empennages: A giant bearing resemblances to Poseidon stands in the sea, holding a gigantic submarine above his head with both hands, and breaks it — corresponding to the title of the current operation "Poseidon" — replacing LRSSG's old emblem after The Taking of Farbanti (Operation Eternal Damnation) — a national emblem of Erusea overlapped by a "forbidden" sign.
Flying in the fore-most position of the formation is an ADF-11F Raven coated in metallic red, the leader aircraft piloted by Trigger, an even more deadly superfighter than X-02S and another prized result of reverse-engineering — reconstructed, modified and improved from the recovered wreckages and data, also with the help from Avril Mead's team. Unlike the Strike Wyverns carrying mostly long-range missiles of air-to-air and air-to-ground apart from the staple Tier 0.5 Scale 1.0 railguns, this scarlet falcon is armed with the aforementioned special UGB, ODMM, a Tier 0.5 Scale 1.0 plasma lance and a 12×4 ADMM, beside two small-caliber automatic cannons utilize a hybrid mechanism combining both old-fashioned gunpowder and gauss-acceleration, function as "the basic armament". Short for "All Direction Multi-Purpose Missile", ADMM is an advanced and brutal armament aiming for destroying large quantities of air and ground targets from ultra-long-range in a short order. Consisted by four identical "launcher pods" much like miniaturized VLS, when firing, each pod synchronously releases twelve mini-missiles with the range of an ODMM, homing capability of a QAAM, and lethality of…well, of a plain AIM-9M. After seconds of vertically ejected from the pods, the mini-missiles ignite boosters and start tracking, each salvo can home in up to forty-eight targets. ADMM's design was initially commissioned by Belkan Air Force during Belkan War, but the insane demand of technologies, including materials and power sources, bottlenecked the R&D for many years. Finally the first working prototype was fielded during Estovakian Civil War and Emmeria-Estovakia War, installed on the Estovakian superfighter CFA-44 Nosferatu, and subsequently got captured by Republic of Emmeria along with the prized aircraft as a trophy of victory. After the breaking out of Lighthouse War, Emmeria, being angry about the backstabbing Erusea since it was backstabbed by Estovakia itself, began to ship assistance to Osean Federation, although CFA-44 was not included in the manifest, but the plan of ADMM was on the list. By its second-to-none capability of reverse-engineering, Osea thoroughly analyzed and redrawn the schematics, outfitting this system to its own trophy of victory — namely the ADF-11F. There are also numerous unmanned aircraft accompanying LRSSG, however they're unarmed, instead integrated with IEWS, since they're only for close-range EW support — Osea never says "No" to AI, it actually utilizes AI widely in every aspect of the society, generating astronomical quantities of wealth, but never allows AI to take command of anything important — AI is created to serve, not to seize.
You can even strike an alliance with Satan if necessary, just make sure it's Satan who bows to you, not you bow to him. Karl Marx is very specific about it.
Long Caster: "Entering AO, Alicorn's position has been marked." Everyone's interface, HUD or COFFIN, shows a large, regular hexagon reticule of dashes, tagged as "Alicorn", below the sea level.
"Fleet attacking, ETA of the first wave…" Bandog follows: "Calculated the estimated number of hits required to sufficiently damage enemy sub's propulsion system to force it to resurface." A counter with an icon of submarine registers in the corner of HUD or COFFIN.
"Fellas, look!" Count reminds everyone to look up. Tens of parachutes blossom in the dark blue sky, and are dragged to the sea by the weight of the torpedoes hanging below.
Then dozens of missiles breaches the surface and detonates in midair, creating huge, white-cyan fireballs, destroying all falling ordnance.
"Scale 1.5 plasma warhead, Helios Missiles." Bandog announces calmly. This weapon, commented by him as "crappy design", indeed only shot down few planes during Lighthouse War, since its point of detonation and radius of damage can be precisely predicted, every pilot with a normally functional brain will escape to safety in time, yet now such ammunition proved to be a very effective countermeasure against anti-sub missiles.
Húxiān: "Should have anticipated them to pull out this trick, but we don't have anything to neutralize it."
"Because we're the neutralization ourselves." Wiseman issues a new order: "Everyone except Trigger go free engagement, ensure as many VL-ASROC to dive into water as you can." LRSSG breaks formation, pilots dash into actions individually with EW UAVs assigned to each of them respectively.
Alicorn retaliates before the arrival of the second attack wave from the Osea-Yuktobanian coalition fleet, in the form of cruise missiles. Trigger blasts them all with a salvo of ADMM. At the same time, many UCAV resembling the Droid Tri-Fighters featured in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith are launched from underwater to engage Osean fighters, and the resemblances they bear are not limited to shape and weaponry, also the maneuverability — at least hunting down fifth-generation fighters isn't a task too difficult to them. Sadly this time all Osean pilots are aces with hundreds of kills on everyone's belt, and they're piloting superfighters, so now it's the UCAV are being hunted instead. No matter what alien technologies of Belkan origin or Erusean origin, or super-alien technologies conceived by two countries colluding with each other, all are nothing more than garbage, the only value is serving as contrasts to prove the magnitude of heroes' badassness, who had passed their trials with flying colors.
【Background Music Stops】
Concerning Belka, it's quite a tragic sovereignty born unlucky: The accentors chose a wrong place to settle down, right in the cold and barren valleys of north, undoubtedly the deadly-freezing winters bestowed by the seas surrounding the North Pole forced them to raid the relatively warm southern plains for supplies — and naturally met stiff resistances from local tribes — retreating back to north for studying more efficient ways of robbery like sharpening swords and hardening armors, then invade the south again…such cycle repeated for over a millennium, until an even bigger threat to both sides, known as Osean Federation, loomed on the west, pressurizing them to make peace and allied altogether to establish "Belkan Empire/Federation", for defending themselves from the superpower's eastward expansion. The very essence of war is testing endurance, the one who lasts longer than others will be victorious. Belka, being the much smaller side, engaged in an endless conflict with the enormous Osea in the form of frequent skirmishes on its western borders, also attacked nations neighboring its eastern, southeastern and southern borders to claim lands and resources, eventfully such front-and-rear warring strategy exhausted the not-so-solid economy, forcing Belka to stand down for negotiation.
When it rains, it pours, seems the Lord God, no matter goes by the name Jehovah or Allah, doesn't like Belkans anyways. After a series of peace-talk, Belka and Osea cooperated to exploit the regions around the Great Lakes, which turned out to be a scam set up by the latter, and the former fell for it like an idiot. Worse still, after losing an astronomical amount of money, Belkan Empire/Federation found itself caught in the era of so-called "Awakening of Ethnic Consciousness". A country becomes more internally united when it wins against the world, and becomes divided if the world wins against it, an axiom applicable to either the real-world or fictional universes. As the result of facing one defeat after another, minorities living in fringe regions of Belka became more and more dissatisfied, having no other options, the central government of Belka allowed them to secede, either to join neighboring sovereignties like Osean Federation and Kingdom of Sapin, or to establish standalone sovereignties by their own for example Republic of Ustio. But — a very big "but" — Belka heavily relies on the productivities of the relatively warm and fertilized eastern and southern regions to support the cold and barren northern valleys, where they hail from, independence of these parts just further derailed its economy into a deeper predicament.
The following event can be found in any history textbooks — the Belkan War. A party of extreme-right-wing came into power, vowing to take back "What's Rightfully Belkan". Soon Belka declared war to surrounding nations, in an attempt to reclaim lands it had lost and the population above as well as the resources below, via destroying newly-founded governments on these lands like Ustio, by blitzkrieg led by aces. But — an even bigger "but" — Principality of Belka — yes, by that time it had been downgraded to a principality — made two fatal mistakes: First off, those small countries, being cornered, flocked to Osea to beg for help, subsequently united under its banner titled "Allied Forces", overshadowing Belkan military for tens of times in aspects of personnel and materials, a contrast so grave even minus the assistance from another superpower known as Union of Yuktobanian Republics.
Secondly, being even smaller and more lack of population and material reserves, Belka placed all casino-chips on the so-called "Wunderwaffe", instead of proved and reliable technologies, hoping to achieve an exchanging rate of "1 to 100" against the Allied Forces. In following days the cruel reality taught Belkans a lesson so painful that they would remember for eternity: Enemies utilized their advantage of vast quantity to the most, striking anytime and anywhere, Belkan forces couldn't respond accordingly, and even they could, the rapid dwindling human resources and material resources wouldn't do any good, not to mention the Belkan aces who were supposed to shine, only achieved limited successes due to the severely insufficient provisions. After a few weeks, Belka retreated to the north, giving up all territories it once occupied, for building up defensive matrixes to fend off the brutally advancing Allied Forces.
Speak of irony, the very last nail to the coffin of the principality's ambition, was the very thing Belka was proud of — the Tier 0.0 Scale 12.0 chemical laser defense system known as Excalibur. This colossal Sauron's Tower do brought massive casualties to the enemies of Belka, even blocked their path for one month. Belkans laughed heartily in trenches: "Finally we made something really works!" However soon the laughter turned into blubbering. Why? Because Allied Forces found a solution: "Since we cannot pull that Sword of Annihilation out of the ground, so we push it under the soil." In one month, the Osean Railway Corps, also known as Osean Railway Engineering Technical Unit, a semi-independent branch of Osean Ground Defense Force, famous (or infamous) for its second-to-none capabilities of building up and tearing down, especially anything related to railways, highways, bridges and tunnels, dug a long tunnel to a certain position right beneath the Excalibur, and destroyed the geological structure by detonating nukes, triggering a violent earthquake led to the complete destruction of all buildings within a radius of many kilometers from the epicenter, and the Excalibur, as well as associated facilities, sunk into the gut of the planet, leaving only a pit as big as Barringer Meteor Crater located in Arizona, United States of America. Almost immediately Osea issued an ultimatum that if Belka continues to resist, every four weeks a major city of theirs will be erased in the same manner. To prove this was not a hollow threat, a time table was released simultaneously, citing all Belkan cities and each city's scheduled time of destruction, the last piece of the domino was named Dinsmark, same name of Belkan capital.
One week later, the extreme-right-wing government collapsed, Principality of Belka surrendered to Allied Forces.
According to the peace treaties, Belka was allowed to keep its northern territories, the rest was divided by the victors, especially the states in south and west were reorganized into the State of North Osea, entrusted to Osean governance. As the war concluded, economies and infrastructures must be restored. Yuktobania wanted no part in this affair since it had got what it wanted, also for the consideration of inconvenient geographic distance. So the only nation capable of "blood transfusion" was Osea, and it was glad to do so for paving the way for pro-Osea thoughts. Of course not everyone was so easy to be bribed. Remnants of Belkan right-wing extremists teamed up with ultranationalists, forming a SPECTRE-like organization of extreme-right-wing supremacists known as Grey Men, for enacting the revenge to Osea and Yuktobania. During the next fifteen years, Grey Men infiltrated into the high-levels of both superpowers, manipulated them into a total war against each other, and dragged the war as long as possible, in order to exhaust both sides. Then these Belkan extremists would provide assistance to Osea and Yuktobania to keep fighting, especially the former, as the condition to force it to accept any demands Grey Men made. NBC weaponry was among the "assistance".
From the commonsense point of view, such a master plan even William Shakespeare has trouble to come up with, must be plotted and implemented with utmost caution, also must be placed under constant adjusting. But the objective truth is none of those conspirators, as individuals or as a collective, lived up to the title of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The entire process was plagued by stupid mistakes and silly errors, one of the many evidences was after kidnapping both President Harling and Prime Minister Nikanor, no doubles were placed in their offices to keep the public from being suspicious. Naturally the conspiracy went south and was exposed to the world way sooner than Grey Men could anticipate, and the consequence was exceedingly severe as well — not only Osea and Yuktobania, entire international society turned against them — it's never funny two superpowers tossing nukes to each other like boys with toys. Moreover, the "para-doomsday" weapon codenamed V2, being developed ever since Belkan War, essentially a colossal ICBM carrying a quantity of V1-Class Thermonuclear Warheads enough to trigger a Category III Nuclear Winter, was exposed too. Grey Men spend years to refine the design, giving birth to the "nerfed" version to be fitted to Strategic Orbital Linear Gun, the gigantic space-based railgun longer than one kilometer, even gone as far as attempting to drop this nuclear arsenal to Oured, regardless Belka itself was also included in the projected most devastated regions.
The master plan was foiled, the base of operation was smashed by joint assault of both superpowers, and the SOLG was destroyed by the legendary Razgriz Air Command Squadron, having lost all bargaining chips, Grey Men was on the run, and undoubtedly was hunted down by operatives from Osea and Yuktobania, all its members and external accomplices were globally wanted in the form of Red Notice, with everyone's personal information released to the public, further branding them as the common enemies of human race. Ironically one particular country acted exceptionally active regarding this issue — yes, Principality of Belka. The country of Grey Men's origin was the very one who hated them the most, because the mainstream thought of its society had changed dramatically after Belkan War — an old saying "a stubborn ox gets the most lashes", Belka wanted to be an obedient ox, no more fancy ideas of warring against others. Actually if you take a close look through the history, Belka never honored the very reason and commitment of its establishment — "to protect its people", on the exact contrary, it almost drove its people to total annihilation, so Belkans really should rethink their ways of dealing with the world. Not to mention Osea generously gave the principality astronomical quantities of economic assistance for rebuilding, raising the living standard even higher than pre-war, majority of Belkans subsequently let go of their grudges: Survivor is the winner, the mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one; you still have a chance to make a difference if you're alive, death is what your enemies exactly want from you.
There were two other, more direct reasons for Principality of Belka to generate an inveterate hatred toward these "race traitors": The first one was undoubtedly the Grey Men attempted to drop SOLG to Oured, regardless Belka will be decimated as well; the second one was…well, Belka was negotiating with Osea for reestablishing its sovereign rights over North Osea (South Belka) during that time, and thanks to Grey Men's maneuvers, the transfer of authority was cancelled indefinitely. Outraged, Belkan government declared the revocation of every single Grey Men's member's nationality as a Belkan, and simultaneously dispatched enforcers national-wide to arrest them for trials in Osea and Yuktobania. The public was one step faster, take that Dr. Schroeder — the primary conspirator who deceived Erusea into the suicidal war against Osea — as an example: He had slippery feet, but his family didn't, the angry citizens in his hometown launched a punitive expedition to his residence — situation got out of control immediately — all lives in doc's home, more than sixty in total — no matter male or female, old or young — including pregnant women and infants, servants and pets — were all but beaten to death, with the houses burnt to ground. Local policemen turned a blind eye to this matter, for they knew well it was unwise to stand in so many angry citizens' way, especially so many angry, armed citizens.
In the end, Osean Federation and Union of Yuktobanian Republics became the biggest victims of this "Circum-Pacific War/Belkan Conflict", orchestrated by Grey Men, however also were the major beneficiaries. Although suffered grave losses during the war, but as males develop friendships via scuffling, superpowers too. Moreover, most of Grey Men members were apprehended and executed, their hidden caches of material and intellectual properties were seized by the governments of both superpowers, including the prized plans and stockpiles of V1 and V2 — international treaties never has any real power, merely pieces of papers, not a single country will say "No" to powerful nukes, so Osea and Yuktobania divided their catch evenly, and began to manufacture the nukes for their own stockpiles respectively. There're always conspiracy theorists in the real-world and in fictional universes, some people suspected the Circum-Pacific War/Belkan Conflict was actually a drama conceived and directed by the superpowers for disposing Belkan extremists once and for all, acting like fell into Grey Men's trap, the stroke them down in a sudden when the time was right.
As for Dr. Schroeder himself, after acknowledging his family's fate, he blamed Osea for being responsible and started to plan a new revenge — both national and personal — even it was Belkans, not Oseans, murdered every human, cat and dog in his home — don't be so surprised, it's a common consideration from the aspect of economy — hurting others is always less painful than hurting yourself, based on same principle, hurting people from a foreign country always costs less than hurting the population of your fatherland (despite legally he was not a Belkan anymore). Easier said than done, nations across the world shut doors in the faces of Grey Men, who were the synonym of international scumbags, and they were lucky for merely being shut out, not being dragged to the root of a nameless wall and got shot from behind — save for only one exception — the "Western Usean Rabid Dog" known as Erusea.