AUTHOR'S NOTE:
The events that transpire in this AU are based on the real-life events that took place in Haiti in 2004. Essentially what happened is that the Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was removed from power following an armed rebellion and several weeks of conflict.
May 2004 will always be known as the "Month of Rebellion" in Galarian history. In that month, a small rebellion broke out against the rule of Corolianus Rose, Galar's president and chairman of the region's Pokémon League. Growing in size and strength, the rebellion quickly spread, capturing city after city until it forced Rose to flee on the 28th. The rebellion would mark the end of the one-party era of Galar's history and ushered in the Blue Era where Galar liberalised into a multiparty free society. So what exactly happened?
Well, it will pay you to know some context. Ever since independence from the Kantonian Empire in 1975, Galar had been ruled as a one-party state with Corolianus Rose, the leader of the Galarian Independence Party that campaigned for its independence, as both president of Galar and chairman of the Galarian Pokémon League. Under Rose's rule, civil liberties were heavily restricted, with strict limitations on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. Protests were regularly broken up with the aid of specially trained Pokémon and live ammunition. Anti-government dissent could be punished with imprisonment in the remote labour camps in the Crown Tundra, or summary execution at the hands of Dynamax Pokémon.
Although Galar did hold elections, they were usually rigged heavily in Rose's favour - according to the government-released data for the 1985 elections, Rose captured around 95% of the vote, although experts now believe that number is closer to 57%. Add in the liberal amounts of corruption plaguing the Galarian government, and you could understand why people would want change.
The year 2004 looked to be another ordinary year by Galarian standards. In mid-March, the opening ceremony for Galar's 2004 Gym Challenge, the 29th since independence, was held in Motostoke with around 60 trainers in attendance. The challenge generally took around three months to complete, during which each of the challengers would journey across Galar, have Pokémon battles with each of the region's eight Gym leaders, and collect Badges from them for a chance at facing the region's Champion - Leon Lockhart, a close personal friend of Rose and widely considered to be his successor upon his death.
The Challenge got underway on the 21st of March and proceeded without incident until the 2nd of May - the day that would mark the beginning of change in Galar.
On that day, a Gym challenger by the name of Marnie Maple was found dead just outside the settlement of Circhester, where one of the region's eight Gyms lay. It was obvious the girl had been murdered - her killers had cut her chest open and stolen her heart (literally). Marnie was on her Gym challenge to support her hometown of Spikemuth, and so the news of her death sent Spikemuth into mourning - and Piers Maple, the town's Gym leader and Marnie's older brother, was so heartbroken he died in his sleep shortly afterward.
It was in this atmosphere of sadness that a young Spikemuth man named Alexander Webbington came to prominence. Like many of his Spikemuth comrades he was a member of Team Yell, an organisation established at the onset of the Gym Challenge to support Marnie in her journey. Its members did their best to get Marnie ahead of her rivals, although some of the methods they used could be described as questionable. They did mean well, however.
Like his fellow Team Yell members Alexander was devastated by Marnie's death. After several hours of mourning, he came to a personal conclusion - he believed Chairman Rose was behind this. Before her death, Marnie had also been a key member of Spikemuth's underground resistance networks and had published several articles critical of Rose's regime. Alexander decided that Rose had ordered Marnie's murder to silence her.
And soon enough, Alexander felt a white-hot anger burning within him, and he decided that for the sake of all of Galar, Rose and the government had to be removed - by any means necessary. Rallying support for his ideas from within Spikemuth and Team Yell members across Galar Alexander managed to manoeuvre his way to become the leader of Team Yell, which he swiftly renamed the Galarian National Liberation Front (GNLF for short), and he changed their goal from supporting Marnie to removing the government.
After some preparations, the GNLF launched a rebellion against Rose's authority in Spikemuth on the 7th which succeeded in ousting Rose's forces from the city. Rose swiftly mobilised to reclaim the city and the two sides collided outside of Spikemuth at noon on the 8th. A few hours later the GNLF had scored a decisive victory, and at Alexander's urging, many disaffected Galarian youths began flocking to the GNLF's cause, giving them the manpower for further offensives.
On the 10th Bea and Allister, the two Gym Leaders of the city of Stow-on-Side became the first Gym Leaders to declare their support for the GNLF. The 11th saw the Battle of Wedgehurst, which would rage until the 15th and saw around a quarter of the government's available forces destroyed or captured as POWs.
Although a government counteroffensive would temporarily set the GNLF back, by the 15th the GNLF resumed their advance, capturing Motostoke on the 18th and the city of Hammerlocke on the 21st. By the 24th the situation was decidedly in the GNLF's favour, with GNLF forces threatening the Galarian capital of Wyndon and all other major cities under their control. Seeing how bad things were going, Rose decided to execute his last resort plan to crush the GNLF. And so, on the 26th he unleashed the Darkest Day.
What exactly the Darkest Day was is something I could devote an entire article to, but to keep things simple Rose awakened the extraterrestrial Pokemon Eternatus, which arrived on the planet around 20,000 years ago and is considered to be the source of the Dynamax phenomenon. The awakening triggered massive storms throughout Galar as the Dynamax energy Eternatus unleashed caused many Pokémon to Dynamax and go berserk. However, this also prompted the two Legendary Pokémon Zacian and Zamazenta, two wolf-like beings who battled Eternatus along ago, to awaken, and with their aid the GNLF successfully defeated and captured Eternatus, stopping the Darkest Day.
Shortly afterwards the GNLF convinced Champion Leon to defect to their cause, and with that Rose's situation was rendered completely untenable. So, at 3:00 pm on the 28th, just as the GNLF forces entered Wyndon's suburbs, Rose used a Corviknight cab to flee Galar. He would journey to Unova, where he would spend the last few years of his life in exile before being struck dead by lightning in 2008. By 5:00 pm all of Wyndon's key locations were secure and an hour later Alexander and the GNLF declared victory over Rose's government. By the 30th of May conventional government resistance in the Galarian heartlands was effectively over, although resistance in the Crown Tundra would continue for another two months.
Following the fall of Rose's regime, Alexander Webbington installed himself as Galar's interim president and organised a provisional government to lead Galar. During the next few months, many of the government's draconian restrictions were dismantled and programs were put in place to help Galar recover from the damage of both the rebellion and the Darkest Day. He also conducted trials for many former regime personnel - many of them were either rehabilitated or sentenced to life in prison. A new constitution was also adopted with stringent protections for civil liberties.
The 2005 elections, held one year to the start of the rebellion, were Galar's first fully free elections since independence, and resulted in victory for the social democratic Voice of the People (VoP) party, which would begin the forging of the modern Galarian welfare state.