BOOK I - UNION
Chapter 8: Clash of Cultures
May, 2015
Finally its almost summer, no longer do I need to cower in my tent because of the cold and because I have a higher heat tolerance than most Europeans, I wouldn't be that susceptible to heat strokes while on duty.
Within a month of the outpost becoming operational, the trade area in front of it had already been drastically expanded. With an original area of 100m X 100m, it bubbled out forward and sideways swallowing up more of the now paved road to Republic City, and the areas around it coming off to about 200m X 220m. By then the trade area was now unfenced and looked like a small boom town of the old west with thousands of people coming in and out to do trade with us. Only the rear part of the outpost, the actual outpost (with barracks and motor pool) was fenced off and security was tightened as the amount of people increased.
A new command has been set up by the defence ministry, calling it the United Republic Command (URC) with its authority extending to all German military matter in the United Republic of Nations. General Braun was appointed as its commanding officer as he had already established relations with the United Forces, hence would make the politicians' lives much easier. Under his command was part of the 21st Panzer Brigade numbering around three hundred which I am a part of, now more or less just relegated to garrison duty. A civilian department was also set up called the Department of Trade and Exchange (DTE) which handles the economic and political activities in the United Republic.
The DTE was possible mostly due to the fact that the large multi-national corporations our world is being dominated by was very very eager to do trade with the other world and actually help fund and set up the department. One of the first companies to set up on the other side was Volkswagen as per the agreement they had with Future Industries, they didn't set up a car dealership but instead provided technical and mechanical knowledge to improve on the Future Industries' Sato Mobile design making it more efficient and increasing production. Other corporations, like Walmart, made its way into the other world thorough government to government deals which in this case, the USA provided a few billion dollars worth of military equipment to shore up the Bundeswehr which was in a pretty bad shape.
The media blackout imposed at the start of April was lifted which opened the floodgates to thousands upon thousands of journalists on both worlds to try securing a permit to go to the other side. The restrictions on academics are also lifted which again saw thousands of applications to cross the portal although it was still closed to the public.
By then end of the month media stations would devote a large amount of their runtime just talking about the strange new world that popped out of nowhere with their rating at an all time high. There were several collaborations between our media and theirs which produced shows informing the masses about their worlds respectively to the audience of the others. One thing that was made clear by the Bundeswehr that will never be opened freely to the other world was most of the things involving the military, technical and doctrinal.
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake shook Nepal on the twelfth of May with thousands of casualties and the whole world reported on this even, even the media from Republic City. Several days later, the United Republic issued a statement in solidarity with the Himalayan country and even offered aid to help, what the United Republic didn't know though was that there was a far larger earthquake in April, also in Nepal which had over twenty thousand casualties. They didn't know because at that time the media blackout was still in effect, so the statement they did now was somewhat of a delay. Nevertheless the global community applauded the United Republic as it was willing to help even though it was literally another world away.
June, 2015
Our media had marked a name for the people from the other world... benders, land of the benders, benderland, all sorts of things that they would thing out of their asses while others call them witches and magicians, bringing the end of the world as their religions called for. The media of the United Republic has a more simple label put towards us, simply outworlders.
A new academic committee was established between the 'outworld' and the 'benderworld', as cringey as it sounds. Through this committee, several universities in both worlds had joined hand in had to form networks to enhance the flow of knowledge between the worlds even though most it is going out from us and not in. Through this committee, the first research team to be created was one to search for fault lines in and around Republic City. They had records that Mount Makapu, situated just a few miles east of Makapu Village (the one the original 'Team Avatar' saved while visiting the fortuneteller Aunt Wu) had erupted seventy years ago but they had no prior records of any other eruptions. They wanted to know if and when there could be a major earthquake so that the city could be more prepared by then after what they have learned of the devastating earthquake in Nepal two month before. The team primarily consisted of geologists and volcanologists, their second goal was to actually teach the local geologists and volcanologists so that they could become self sustaining in the future.
Trade was further expanded by the addition of more companies from our world in joint ventures with theirs. It was also this time that the first real local protest began appearing, they were angry that the large corporation had effectively made them unemployed. Most of the protesters were small business owners, businesses that had been heavily affected by the Battle of Republic City a year prior, and the fact that most of the downtown area had been overgrown with spirit vines.
July, 2015
The first cinema was opened in the trade area, now called Deutschstadt (Germantown in English) by both the local population and the media as it had swelled well over what you would call an outpost. The building the cinema was based on had just started construction two months prior and, once again with the help of earthbenders had already finished, including the interior designs and furnishing. It has twelve screens with a seating capacity of about five hundred each, the first films they featured were the Marvel ones, then after a run of a few weeks turn to other films. Audiences were wowed by the spectacle that they saw and needed to be reminded before the start of the films that they were fictional so that they won't go around and think our world had Iron Men flying around and the Avengers protecting us from aliens, not that they don't know anyway. The cinema was also the first establishment in Deutschstadt to have all employees coming from the local population, most of which were from the small refugee group that were granted refuge in the outpost while it was still under construction two months ago.
With the outworld cinema being firmly established in the United Republic, what little of the mover industry in the country was practically destroyed. Especially hard hit was Varrick's company who, for the last year was in the lead in producing movers. Now just a few days after the cinema opened, local theaters ran dry of customers who would wait in line for hours at the new and hated outworld cinema.
With the rapid expansion of Deutschstadt the road connecting the outpost to the cave, called the Nan Shan road, was upgraded to feature a two way avenue with three lanes each. It was estimated that it would have the capacity to sustain a full cross-world trade without railroads only if the customs and border control are also heavily expanded to deal with the exponential increase in traffic that was sure to come.
NASA's New Horizon spacecraft, which made a flyby of Pluto in the fourteenth of July, was widely publicized especially in the benderworld where space travel is for them something literally out of a sci-fi novel. Now with a public very much intrigued by aerospace in general, President Raiko invited the giants of the industry like Airbus and Boing to try and create an aviation industry in the United Republic from scratch.
August, 2015
The first report published by the geologists sent alarm bells ringing throughout Republic City, they have discovered a fault system running for over three hundred kilometers on a north-south direction just thirty kilometers east of the metropolis. The report by the United Geological Society, the primary organization in their world that deals with volcanoes and earthquakes which was created along the lines of the United States Geological Survey, stated that there is a stong possibility that the fault line would move in the next decade or so.
Also the first this month, several 'equalists' were caught trying to smuggle guns into Republic City but they didn't get far. The federal police was tipped off by agents in the trade area and they permitted the weapons to go so far as to actually be in the possession of the equalists before the they pounced on them with the help of the metalbanding police of the RCPD, and the new local police force of the Deutschstadt. The federal police had also arrested the ones who were providing the weapons in Germany itself within the day which was a big win PR wise. Truth to be told it was almost impossible to smuggle anything in or out anyway because everything gets checked by the customs officers be it food or air conditioners.
Avatar Korra made her second trip to the outworld so far and it was on a religious convention with the heads of different religions, like the pope and the dalai lama, being present. It was there in order to put to rest that benders are witches and other bad stuff that will bring the demise of the world. With the backing of religious leaders it would make Korra look a lot less mysterious and a lot more relatable, hell there's already a new religion popping up in Munich which worships the avatar, any reincarnations of it and since the thing they're worshiping is actually real membership had started to skyrocket for these new religions.
September, 2015
September the third was a historic day for the land of the benders, the Earth Republic was officially founded after over a year of nerve wrecking uncertainty with fifty seven provinces within its borders. It was a constitutional monarchy, with King Wu (formerly Prince Wu) as a titular position in the new nation, the real power lies in the parliament with its prime minister being Kalin Ma, a staunch nationalist who in many ways despise the monopoly that the United Republic has over the goods coming from the outworld (its pretty much like how the UK government in our world works). His first order of business was to rebuild the shaken and weakened military after Kuvira's defeat a year ago, he would then need to try and entice the outworlders to trade with the newly formed republic and break the monopoly that the United Republic had for the last five months.
The United Republic and the Bundeswehr had signed onto agreement that would expand Outpost Guderian into an actual base. It would have increased the size of the outpost tremendously with enough area to house a full brigade if needed be, and a single airstrip to service a small force of airplanes and helicopters. It was met with protests on both worlds, with the ones in the United Republic against it because it would mean foreign troops would be stationed in their soil, and in Germany because of sending men outside of the country. The German constitution said that a specific resolution of parliament, which describes the details of the mission and limits its term is needed before troops can be deployed. It did in fact pass through the parliament but its reasoning was less than satisfactory for most people which was 'to protect our citizens and interests', and a lot of them accuse the government of reviving imperialism. But, it was mostly because of the growing fear within the United Forces that at anytime the new Earth Republic would attack as they knew Prime Minister Kalin Ma had not taken lightly the monopoly they had over trade so far.
It was also this month that Future Industries unveiled a new model for their Sato Mobiles with technology heavily borrowed from Volkswagen. It boasts as to being more fuel efficient than any other cars in this world and was also considerably cheaper because of the new production lines in the same forms as outworld companies have.
October, 2015
On October the eighteenth seismologists from the United Geological Society with specialist help from outworlders detected small earthquakes around the base of Mount Makapu, too small for non-earthdenders to feel but powerful enough to be picked up by seismometers. They've also discovered gas leaking through the volcano near its peak reinforcing the notion that its will erupt in a few weeks time. It was quickly reported to the authorities so they could formulate a plan when it eventually erupts. Its possible destructiveness was increased exponentially as it sits only fifteen kilometers east of the Republic City fault line, or just forty five kilometers away from the city. If the volcano was to erupt it could very easily trigger an earthquake from the fault line that could go up to a magnitude of 7.0. It was not reported to the media however as to prevent panic in the city and the surrounding countryside.
An inquiry was made into the current state of the Bundeswehr and it was reported on the Der Spiegel that it was in a state of disrepair particularly on the Luftwaffe (air force) where only half of its planes are airworthy and the rest were grounded due to lack of replacement parts. With the current program of building Guderian Base (formerly Outpost Guderian) in the outskirts of Republic City the parliament had voted to increase the budget allocated to the Bundeswehr by over twenty five percent in order to 'alleviate its shortfalls and increase its effectiveness in defending German interests in both worlds'. With the budget increase comes protests once again with them seeing the government going through the route of militarization that the constitution had stopped since the end of the second world war.
On the sixth day of November, the worst fears of the United Geological Society has been realized. A week ago the volcano started to become far more active than it had been with lava flows coming from the mouth of the volcano being reported with help of outworld helicopters. Just three days ago a general evacuation had been ordered to everyone within twenty kilometers of the volcano. All was set and well, the government was ready for the eruption and the effects of massive ash clouds, what they were not ready was when the eruption was to come, it will not only come with fury and fire but it will also come with destruction that can only be with the movements of tectonic plates within the ground.