AN: Credit to perfect_shade, Vasilisa, Readhead and Sunny for the revisions

1953 January 4th, in Wien at the original World Cup stadium's luxury box:

I took a sip of beer as I watched the party roar with energy with a band playing in the background. There were multiple things to celebrate about. The Germanian aerial lacrosse and football teams that were going to be present at the world championships within a few months, and I invited them to emphasize their importance to Germanian national pride. A farewell party for Green and his staff to go to Formosa to help establish a new aerial lacrosse team and train them up in record time, with another group of staff members doing the same for Formosa's football team.

I recognized one of the assistant coaches. It was the girl who complained "it's not fair" back at the international aerial lacrosse game in the 1940.

I walked over to her. "I think I've seen you before. The first international aerial lacrosse game, back in 1940. Where it was your team up against the Americans."

Her eyes widened. "Ah, yes, I remember the speech you gave us after our defeat."

"What's your name?" I extended out my hand.

"Bettina Tecklenburg," she smiled as she shook my hand.

"How are you feeling about the upcoming games?"

"I'll miss Coach Green as his inputs were very helpful for our team. But maybe that's what the new Formosan team needs."

"And if your team gets pitted against the Formosan team?"

"Hmmm." Tecklenburg frowned. "Well, that could be awkward because your government was the one that pressured the organization to let both the Formosan football and aerial lacrosse teams into the competition when technically they were too late for the application process."

"Don't worry about politics." I smiled. "Just focus on having a good game and keeping the players and fans happy, I'll deal with any political drama that follows from it."

I continued chatting with the rest of the staff for sometime, before excusing myself to take a breather. Then I heard someone walk up beside me.

It was Shu.

"I remember when Chairman Zhang talked about the possibility of the CSR having their own international sports team. But he considered that as a vanity project when there were so many other things that needed attention and resources. How did your country get into international sports?"

I took another sip. "Germania's first entry into the World Cup was a surprise for me."

"Oh?" Shu glanced at me.

"The Ildoan Kingdom at the time was preoccupied with their civil war, so the Frankish organization that was running the World Cup tossed the bid at us with only about 6 months before the start of the World Cup." I gripped my mug tightly. "And President de Lugo at the time challenged me. He was counting on Germania refusing the bid at the last moment to embarrass us."

"I think I finally understood what ended the Chairman." Shu cleared his throat. "He was too logical. Didn't sufficiently factor in the human emotions. He would have been the type of person to refuse an international sports bid on the basis of pouring resources into building more industry and tanks, and ignore the backlash for losing face."

"Losing face, I haven't heard of that phase in a while." I tapped my chin.

"Hmm?" Shu raised an eyebrow. "You seem to be the first European I've heard of to know about that concept."

"I have done some research in east Asian culture before," I brushed the topic off. "Anyways, regarding the Chairman, I'm assuming he was oblivious to the rumblings below him?"

"He ignored them because of his intense focus on trying to drive the CSR to catch up on economic power and technology. Which I strongly suspect was what allowed Kang to secretly gather his support base for the eventual coup."

"Would they send a sports team if they were invited?"

"Li might be suspicious of any interactions with capitalists." Shu shrugged. "Kang, I don't know how he would respond. If he sent a sports team, he would do everything it takes to rig the games to be in the CSR's favor and likely accuse the international sports organizers of being capitalist lap dogs should his teams be punished for cheating."

I nodded my head. "What's your plan when you arrive in Formosa, other than helping with recruiting players for the two new sports teams?"

"Find out what happened to my family." Shu shrugged before he walked off.

"You look tired, Tanya." Visha came up to me.

"I kinda lost track of how long I've been talking, shaking hands and all that." I yawned, then Visha grabbed my hands.

"Where are we going?" I stammered as Visha pulled me along.

"You need a break," she replied as we entered an unused lounge area and she locked the door before pushing me over to a couch. "Take a nap."

About two hours later:

"Ah, there you are," the door opened as Elya peaked in and smirked at us being naked together. "I was wondering where the two of you had been for the past few hours. Everyone had left the party for the night"

"Sorry, I had to take a nap and overslept. And Visha wouldn't allow me to drink coffee." I sighed as I put my clothes back on while Elya closed the door.

"Well, physical exercises on a bed, or a couch, with a partner is another way of refreshing yourself." Elya smirked, and as I coughed awkwardly while Visha blushed a bit, Elya then cleared her throat. "Now, back to the actual business. I wanted to discuss what we should be doing if Shu starts causing trouble after he arrives in Formosa ."

"I'm curious to hear it." I motioned at Elya to continue.

"BND's agents and Akinese agents will watch his and his associates' moves." Elya replied. "If he turns on us or plots to go back to the CSR, then we'll have to assume the information he provided us can't be trusted and he might have been an agent for the current government all along."

"What should we do if he launches rallies that are a bit too close to the communist platform, but sets a platform that is hostile to the CSR's current government?" Visha tapped on her chin.

"That possibility had been bothering me." Elya sighed. "He could redirect any grievances from the frictions of integrating the refugees into Formosa back at the CSR, or cause problems. Or do both."

I shrugged nonchalantly. "Let's wait and see what he does before we continue speculating. He did tell me that he plans on investigating what happened to his family while he is handling the sports business."

1953 January 7th, at the Haus Wachenfeld mountain retreat:

The balcony view of the Alps was fantastic, and I would have also been enjoying my coffee with the winter scenery. Except this meeting was making my blood boil.

Perfidious Albion. That was the only thought running in my mind when Elya finished her presentation of what she learned from the Chinese defector in Akitsushima Dominion, a claimed high ranking intelligence officer that was disillusioned with Kang Sheng due to Li Lisan being freed and the following massive purges. Along with the correlation of that information from what the BND and the Foreign Ministry had collected.

"All this time…" Visha muttered while adjusting her scarf.

"The Albish should be thankful that I'm not in the media business anymore and I wasn't the first one to see this information." Dertinge sighed, with his breath forming puffs of white mist as he set his coffee down. "What do we do with this information?"

"Where is Shu's input, before he left for Formosa?" I flipped through the handout notes that Elya provided.

"He looked through the documents we provided. We intentionally included some false information in there to test him. He quickly identified the documents that he had seen details about, set aside the ones that he would have not had any access to such information to confirm them which included some of the false information, and discarded the false reports as being completely false." Elya shifted her eyes off to the side. "But he asked us what we would be doing with the information about the deal."

"Why?"

"He stated that while the Albish deserved to be burned, making the deal would also discredit the Chairman and everyone associated with him. It would provide propaganda wins for the illegitimate CSR government."

He had a good point. If the coup plotters aired the Chairman's dirty laundry, people would be rightfully skeptical. Especially when the Chairman was dead and they would be unable to extract false confessions out of him. If the Albish did it, it would be political suicide for them. But if we did it, that would cement the coup plotters as the rightful successors of a communist government.

"We won't need to make the deal public." I waved my hand dismissively. "We just need him to provide some… inputs, when the Albish or the communists are acting strange again. Regarding the Albish, I'm assuming they had reason to shut Hongkong's borders and tried to send Shu on a flight to the CSR?"

"The defector claimed that the CSR is betraying some of the communist rebel groups in the Albish colonies in return for those two favors." Elya smiled. "And it wasn't the first time that they betrayed their backed groups. While I expected the Albish to keep playing their usual games, I had never imagined that the Chairman and now his replacements are engaged in such levels of skullduggery against their own ideology."

"Regarding those previous betrayals, what did the Albish give?" Visha raised an eyebrow.

"Shu confirmed that the Allied Kingdom did indeed provide jet engine, radar, missile and other technologies and assistance to the CSR, and the means to manufacture them, in return for helping them cripple the communist insurgencies throughout Southeast Asia. The grain deal to the CSR after their earthquake was also part of that trade. As for the information that the CSR provided, it included other countries' colonies such as Francois Indochina." Elya then pointed at the map of Southeast Asia. "That would explain why the Frankish and Albish had been able to further build up their forces around Aegyptus over the months without having to resort to conscription and war economy. They were pulling them from the colonies knowing that the rebels were defanged."

"What technologies did the CSR acquire without needing the deal?" Adenaue asked as he tightened his fur coat while the frigid winter wind picked up.

"The defector claimed the CSR already stole nuclear technology secrets from the Frankish before NKVD agents were annihilated by the SCE. I couldn't confirm that as I had already scaled back the BND operations to keep our agents and informants safe from the violence loving SCE." Elya shook her head dismissively. "CSR's intel noted that the Frankish and Albish seemed to be working on a joint nuclear development program."

"That reminds me." I wrangled my hands, resisting the temptation to fire up a warming spell. "The Albish ambassador, Roger Franks, claimed that the Allied Kingdom was close to getting their first nuclear weapon and that his government was not concerned if we restart ours. What's the American progress on nuclear development?"

"I don't have much information." Elya shrugged. "Publicly, they mentioned having a self-sustaining reactor as of last year but didn't disclose the power output or how long it remained in operation."

Then an idea hit me. I couldn't stop grinning while thinking about it.

If things go well, it could help push the Unified States more into Germania's orbit while leaving the Allied Kingdom and Francois Republic at a disadvantage when it comes to international affairs. And the massive cash injection would wipe away Germania's budget balancing issue. President Paul blew the budget on nuclear toys, and I had to keep spending to harden OZEV against an oil shock, while also worrying about how to pay for Germania's military modernization.

It could also backfire and I would have to confront an out of control global nuclear proliferation with everyone else thinking they can just drop nukes as if they were just an extra big conventional bomb.

But I'm not sure if I have a choice. Even if Germania kept all of its nuclear secrets to itself, eventually the rest of the world would discover them on their own and I would still have to deal with the nuclear proliferation problem. And miss out on all of the things I could accomplish with the American money.

"Uh…" Dertinge muttered.

"We have a massive stockpile of weapons grade plutonium…" I trailed off.

"Yes?" Adenaue asked with a confused look.

"With all of our graphite moderated reactors being ready to operate fully within a few months, and if they are all forced to run at full power in the event of an energy shortage, the plutonium production will skyrocket. Not to mention the half a dozen additional reactors that would finish construction later this summer or fall…"

"President…"

"And even if we develop the hydrogen bomb, it would only make a small dent in the plutonium stockpile."

"What's a hydrogen bomb?" Lergen asked. I wasn't sure of what to make of his facial expression. Curiosity maybe?

I ignored that question and instead got to the point. "We could sell plutonium to the Americans. I highly doubt they would ever threaten us with nuclear weapons. I'd much rather trust them than the Albish or Frankish. We then use the proceeds to wipe away all of Germania's debts while still being able to afford things such as military modernization, the continuing shift from relying on oil and other expensive ventures.

There was a deafening silence in the room. I took that as a cue to continue from the lack of objections.

"If the Americans want more plutonium, we could arrange a deal where they help fund constructing additional graphite moderated reactors to produce electricity for us and plutonium for them. Or if they pay extra, we'll help them build their own reactors."

Adenaue cleared his throat. "If we give nuclear material and technology to the Americans, they may later share it with others regardless of our opinion."

"If the Albish and Frankish want to buy plutonium from the Americans, then let them." I nonchalantly shrugged. "They're already close to having their own nuclear bombs and the communists will eventually join the nuclear club, while we'll leapfrog their developments using American money. We'll just sell more plutonium to the Americans that are acting as middlemen instead of letting the material sit in our bunkers."

"... I'll put out feelers to the American ambassador here and see what their nuclear appetite is." Dertinge sighed.

"What will stop the other countries from pursuing President Paul's foreign and military policy of relying almost exclusively on nuclear weapons?" Lergen narrowed his eyes. "The Americans won't do that against us. But what about against the CSR? Or if they sell nuclear bombs to the Akinese which would likely cause the CSR to act irrationally should they discover their next door neighbor has city busting bombs? I would expect the CSR to double down on their biological weapons program under their new administration."

I got up from my chair and walked over to the chalkboard. "Let's go over what President Paul had accomplished with his nuclear foreign policy. Starting with Caucasia. Did nuclear weapons help with Germania's counter-insurgency struggles or deter the communists from sticking their dirty hands into the region?"

"No." Lergen sighed as I marked on the chalkboard.

"Did Paul's waving of nuclear weapons coerce our neighbors into being more cooperative?"

The shaking of their heads or their facial expression was enough to tell me that was also a no.

"Did nuclear weapons deter the CSR from shelling Kinmen Island the first time?"

"The opposite. They were like a cornered rat." Dertinge took a drink of his water.

"The point I'm getting at is that nuclear weapons only address a narrow range of security concerns." I turned away from the chalkboard to face everyone. "Threats that end the existence of a country. Everything else below that, such as the CSR and Akitsushima Dominion having their dispute over where territorial water boundaries should be, the flying of reconnaissance jets over the CSR or the ongoing disputes over the Suez Canal, would be completely inappropriate to address with nuclear weapons."

"What would stop a country from using nuclear weapons to carve through an enemy's army and decapitate their leadership by destroying the capital?" Lergen asked.

"Then they should expect the same to be done to them. And if the defending country responds with nuclear weapons, well, everyone dies and the charred land is forever poisoned with radioactive particles." I shrugged my shoulders. "But I could see how some leaders might lack the foresight to understand that using nuclear weapons as an 'I win button' will come back to bite them. So we would also need to put out messaging to the world to emphasize that Germania would only use their nuclear weapons to protect our and our allies' existence and WILL use their stockpile if another country attacks Germania with weapons of mass destruction. We will also declare that any country that uses nuclear weapons for an offensive war will be regarded as crimes against humanity, and their neighbors that ally with Germania will have Germania's nuclear protection to safeguard their existence."

There was a moment of silence before Dertinge broke it. "So we will be using our nuclear weapons if Crimea, Kieva, Belarusia or Formosa are threatened with being fully occupied from an invasion?"

"I don't want everyone to go running off with their own nuclear weapons. Too much risk if a country has a civil war and non-state actors get their hands on such weapons." I tapped on my chin. "It's easier to extend our nuclear umbrella over our allies and let the enemies decide if they really want to take the risk of fucking around to find out. As for Formosa, technically we don't have a formal alliance or security guarantee with them. Perhaps we can make our nuclear policy declaration right after securing a treaty with them?"

Then another idea hit me and I grinned again. I'm offering high demand products to the Unified States. I could do something to help further drive the demand, by pulling a business trick from my previous life. Invoking that "fear of missing out". Maybe that'll convince them to fund more reactor constructions in Germania or drown us in money for our nuclear technology.

I turned to Elya, "Would it be safe to share the information about the communists on their way to developing their own nuclear weapons, including the part where they stole information from the Albish-Frankish nuclear weapons program?"

"That will leak back to the Albish and Frankish." Dertinge pointed out while Elya started scribbling in her notebook.

"And do what with it?" I rolled my eyes. "Deny it until the communists detonate their first nuke? I could care less about their feelings at this point. They will be too busy putting out fires in their colonies when the CSR finds an excuse to break the deal and rearm the communist rebels."

"I'll leave some of the specific information out to protect our agents, but if you want me to release the information, then I can do it." Elya looked up from her notebook.

I don't get it, if they're all willing to go along with it, why do they look so uneased?

With the meeting being dismissed, I looked back out at the Alps and could see the carmine sunset, making the snow on the mountains look like blood.

Could this be an omen of what was to come?

I shook my head as I took flight into the air from the balcony. Dumb superstitions.

As I floated through the air, I couldn't help but think about the potential dangers from everyone obtaining their own nuclear weapons. I had seen plenty of examples of people acting irrationally, sometimes to their own detriment. But with nuclear weapons, an irrational actor with a bomb vest threatening to blow themselves up is a major threat to everyone.

I just hope I don't have to face Being X again because some damn fool started a full blown war that escalated into weapons of mass destruction usage.

1953 January 16th, in Formosa:

"We will rescue our homeland from tyranny! And bring down the traitors that butchered our loved ones!" Shu screamed into the microphone as the crowd exploded with raucous cheering and chanted insults directed at the CSR's current government.

"This is not a question of ideology or political beliefs," he continued. "The criminals busying themselves with the ruin of our homeland are also trying to ruin the dream of building a better future for our children! We shall not permit this! We will do whatever it takes to bring them to justice!"

Shu paused as a fresh round of howls and cheers rose from the throng, waiting for the crowd to calm down before continuing.

"Yes," he continued at last, "we will do whatever it takes! Blood shed in treachery cannot rest unavenged, my comrades! For our brothers, for our dear Chairman, for our children… We will not rest until a pure justice has descended upon them all! Let the blood-hungry butchers choke on the blood that they are so eager to shed! Let them experience the pure virtue of the true will of the people! A new double-headed emperor has risen up among us, comrades, a new self-proclaimed Son of Heaven draped in revolutionary red! And for such a crime as making themselves kings, there is only one justice!"

"That justice is death!"

The answering howl was deafening. As Shu looked out over the sea of faces, twisted with anguish and baying for blood, saw again the recording of Li's frenzied mob dragging his family members out of the train they had attempted to flee in and holding an impromptu "people's court session" right next to the railroad tracks. The mob demanded his family to swear loyalty to Li, denounce Shu, and change their surnames, which they all refused. The mob proceeded to declare them all guilty of treason by association and slowly ran that same train over the bound forms of each and every member of his family.

Including his children.

The recording had continued until the last of the remains were dumped into an adjacent river.

There was some remote possibility that the recording was some elaborate fabrication. But that hope was destroyed when he was given a second recording of a showing of the first recording being played publicly at a Li-controlled film theater for an enthusiastic audience who had cheered the deaths of his family.

Looking out over the angry crowd, stirred to a frothy rage, Shu was entirely certain that he was far from the only person to receive news of similar atrocities, public horrors only now reaching the ears of exiled fathers, brothers, mothers and sons. It was clear that the massacres out at sea were just a small sample of what was happening back in the mainland.

Li had been, if nothing else, extremely enthusiastic in his purges in parallel with Kang's own purges.

And Kang was the one who had let the mad dog out of his prison.

But blind, uncontrolled anger wouldn't be helpful, particularly since the Germanians had made no secret of their hesitancy at the prospect of starting a direct war against the CSR. Which meant Formosa would have to be the vanguard tearing into the CSR to demonstrate to the Akitsushima Dominion, South Bharat and OZEV that a war against the CSR that was under the incompetent dual leadership of Kang and Li was indeed winnable, ideally shocking the people in the CSR that were merely going along with Kang's and Li's rule out of their complacency or fear in the process. Maybe even strike deals with the Unified States, Francois Republic and the Allied Kingdom to also join in on the war. While he had plenty of reasons to distrust the Albish, they would likely betray a weakened CSR just like how they tried to betray him. Any territory grabs from those countries after the war would be a future problem that he would deal with.

All he needed to do after the invasion was arrest or kill the two fools and their immediate supporters, and then persuade the rest of the country to accept a saner government. He still had agents in the CSR lying low and biding their time as they waited for Kang and Li to inevitably shift their attention from purging pro-Zhang people to clawing at each other's throats.

Perhaps he could wait for one of them to defeat the other one, but that would allow them to consolidate their power instead of fighting a war against Formosa and its allies while also being suspicious of their unstable alliance.

But for that opening stage conflict to happen in Formosa's favor, it needs a powerful military. And he didn't have much time if he wanted to strike while Kang and Li are likely plotting against each other. He might have to back whoever was losing the power struggle to extend the duration of the CSR's internal conflict to buy more time. They would inevitably form a temporary alliance should the capitalists join the war, so keeping the two sides paranoid of each other would be extremely important to ensure that they could never properly coordinate their forces and maybe even sabotage each other.

And for a country to have a powerful military, it needed a large, well developed industrial base to support it and its allies' military forces. Obviously Formosa's allies would not accept a communist government ruling Formosa, but that was fine. Chairman Zhang was always about "flow like water" in his governance and foreign diplomacy, and if it meant playing along with what Formosa's allies wanted to see and hear for Formosa to get the support to develop their industry and military, he was willing to put up that act for as long as necessary. White cat or a black cat; it didn't matter as long as the rats were dead, and he didn't have time to be picky about a cat when the rats were busy eating the rice storage.

Shu then stepped back up towards the microphone. "But before we can take the fight to the mainland, we must build up Formosa's industry! We must make ourselves not only the arsenal of the east and the beating heart of the true revolution, but we must also become a strength all our own! We will make our new island home into the industrial powerhouse of the Pacific, and use our productivity and ingenuity to propel us back into economic prosperity and military power, right in the face of the men of blood who squat back in the nest of ashes they have built upon the Mainland! They may have snuffed out the future of the people in the Mainland, but not for us. We will persevere! And one day very soon, we will take back our homes and give the new kings all of the blood to drink that they can possibly want when we drown them in it!"

Off in the distance, unknown to Shu but still expected by him, disguised BND agents were observing the event.

A few days later:

My jaw dropped when I saw the recording of Shu's political rally in Formosa Republic. Technically he currently wouldn't be allowed to be a politician on that island as a non-citizen, but that didn't stop him from holding one anyways. The sign ups for the two sports teams quickly exploded after that rally. It was inevitable that Formosa would have to eventually integrate those refugees. Treating the refugees as second-class people would cause intense headaches for everyone.

I had seen the reports from the BND and the Akinese intelligence of some major infighting among the CSR's agents in Formosa not too long after Shu and his associates arrived on that island. Elya had gambled that it was better to back Shu in that power struggle and to persuade the Akinese intel to do the same. It didn't take long for a large number of agents that were loyal to Kang or Li to end up being turned over to the Formosan police, or disappeared.

"He has to have a motive to be that enthusiastic…" I muttered.

"Based on reports from our informants, he does have a motive or two." Elya flipped through her notes. "He wants to use the Formosa Republic to invade and oust the current CSR's government in order to rescue its people from tyranny. Especially with the uncertainty of which of the two leaders, Kang and Li, would win the power struggle in the CSR. His other motive might be more personal. Someone showed him recordings of his entire extended family being killed by Li's mobs. Afterward, he spent an hour each week mourning his family and there are no signs of him stopping that."

"I'm not liking where this is going." I got up from my seat and looked at Elya with concern, but she continued on.

"Shu reached out to the Akinese to discuss economic investment plans. He suggested that an industrialized Formosa would make it easier for the Akinese to sustain their forward military bases and operations next to the CSR, especially in the South Jiuzhou Sea where the new Chinese government might have an interest in the messy colonial wars that are being waged in the region."

"And what about the communists that don't agree with Shu?" Visha asked.

"Branded as Kang's or Li's puppets and given the option of either returning back to the CSR or accepting that they will have to cooperate with the capitalists like us to bring down the CSR." Elya paused for a second. "For those that were more actively resistant to Shu or refused those two options, well, they would have been fortunate if they had proactively surrendered themselves to the Formosan police instead of waiting to be captured by Shu's agents."

There was silence for a few seconds in the room, and then I started laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

"All along I was worried about potentially letting a communist take control of Formosa, but instead we let a warmonger have his way of wanting to invade the CSR for a regime change and out of personal revenge."

"I thought you wanted to stamp out communism?..." Visha tilted her head in confusion.

"Not through total war!" I stared at Visha in shock. "I was content to contain communism and let it implode by itself from its inherent inefficiencies. Now I'm going to have to restrain Shu to not start a war! And he had previously negotiated a secret deal between the Allied Kingdom and the CSR, so if we abandon him, he'll find someone else to strike deals with!"

And if I try to pull the economic rug out from under Formosa, I would end up looking like a hypocrite to everyone else. A communist turning into a hardline capitalist overnight was the last thing I expected!

"Surely he doesn't actually intend on conscripting Formosa's population to invade mainland CSR." Visha shrugged, while I let out a deep sigh in response.

"Visha, wars are not always conducted by rational actors. I expect Shu to be a persistent annoyance with pestering us, Akitsushima Dominion, and other countries of 'when are we going to invade the CSR?!'. Maybe he'll intentionally escalate a dispute to find justification to drag everyone into a war, such as bombing CSR's artillery guns when they shell Kinmen Islands again."

"So, do we remove him?" Elya flipped to a new page in her notebook.

"No, Elya." I put my head in my hands. "I am so conflicted about what to do. I'll need to sleep on this and maybe I'll have an idea of how to deal with him."

Building up Formosa's economy is going to require the Akinese, South Bharatian and maybe even the Americans to help out. Perhaps I could meet with the leaders or at least the representatives of those countries to discuss joint investment plans.

I shifted my eyes to a newspaper's headline about the upcoming international sport events.

"Perhaps we can use the sports events to invite other world leaders for meetings, including discussing Formosa's future."

AN:

Reference to the Haus Wachenfeld mountain retreat: wiki/Berghof_(residence)

Reference to the "black cat, white cat" phrase: wiki/Deng_Xiaoping#Four_modernizations

Deng quoted the old proverb "it doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it is a good cat."

References to Taiwan's history including its economic development:

watch?v=nGYzXNpQclo

watch?v=oezV7TTGFM8

The below linked Wargame European Escalation video game scenes inspired my writing of Shu's sudden shift from merely trying to survive, to plotting revenge through any means necessary. I don't know if there are other games where a neutral narrator that previously had no hints of ideology/political/personal bias or emotions suddenly drops their facade of professionalism and becomes a character with a very clear motive to burn everything to the ground. You go from fighting for NATO or the Warsaw Pact, to organizing an army that consists of both sides' rogue forces to fight for your own cause.

watch?v=UYlJkGxVPRA

"They used us like pawns…"

/XEbzDS_HhJc?t=43

"We'll just have to cut some heads to convince the rest to follow us."

/RQR1KC6Dtg0?t=24

"They intend to crush my "rebellion". Their commander's loyalty to the Party is born of too many years of fearful obedience. Let's free his men from their blind submission to leaders who are anything but worthy."

watch?v=YLULNHH5dMI

"With the nuclear ordnance stored here, we will make them all pay."

In complete contrast to the earlier campaigns where the narrator is very neutral when explaining the Polish rebellion situation to a USSR player: watch?v=Tr9FHDAGIyQ

A real life leader who had the 3D chess strategy of carefully balancing the right-wing military faction and the communists within the same government: wiki/Sukarno#Guided_Democracy_period_(1959)

To counterbalance the power of the military, Sukarno started to rely on the support of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). In 1960, he declared his government to be based on Nasakom, a union of the three ideological strands present in Indonesian society: nasionalisme (nationalism), agama (religions), and komunisme (communism). Accordingly, Sukarno started admitting more communists into his government, while developing a strong relationship with the PKI chairman Dipa Nusantara Aidit.

…

Despite these appearances of unchallenged control, Sukarno's guided democracy stood on fragile grounds due to the inherent conflict between its two underlying support pillars, the military and the communists. The military, nationalists, and the Islamic groups were shocked by the rapid growth of the communist party under Sukarno's protection. They feared an imminent establishment of a communist state in Indonesia. By 1965, the PKI had three million members and were particularly strong in Central Java and Bali. The PKI had become the strongest party in Indonesia.

The military and nationalists were growing wary of Sukarno's close alliance with communist China, which they thought compromised Indonesia's sovereignty. Elements of the military disagreed with Sukarno's policy of confrontation with Malaysia, which in their view only benefited communists, and sent several officers (including future Armed Forces Chief Leonardus Benjamin Moerdani) to spread secret peace-feelers to the Malaysian government. The Islamic clerics, who were mostly landowners, felt threatened by PKI's land confiscation actions (aksi sepihak) in the countryside and by the communist campaign against the "seven village devils", a term used for landlords or better-off farmers (similar to the anti-kulak campaign in Stalinist era). Both groups harboured deep disdain for PKI in particular due to memories of the bloody 1948 communist rebellion.