Ringing in the New Year with a major casino raidMatsui Sanjiro
12:25 AM (HGS) 1 January 5000A mere three years after its opening, the Auspicious Dragon casino in Syakusen, Mitrania was raided by police just before midnight and thus the beginning of the new millennium, succeeding in capturing and arresting the targets - at least 16 high-profile members of the Akaioji Syndicate - but deciding to permanently close down the casino. The mobsters, foremost among which was notorious Akaioji deputy Akai Akechi (who skipped bail two years ago on murder and extortion charges), were gathering at the casino to celebrate the new millennium. While everyone present likely knew the mobsters' status in the underworld, an upstanding citizen who asked not to be named called the cops in on the yakuza from the bathroom upon witnessing one snort a line of cocaine. The tactical team arrived soon after.
The Dragon was a vital front for Akaioji criminal activities, used to generate legitimate revenue that could therfore be used to cover up revenue from illegal activities in a massive money laundering operation. Over time, it became the
de facto headquarters for the Syndicate and simultaneously evolved into a criminal operation in its own right, with the Syndicate rigging the machines and games far beyond the degree to which most casinos do and dealers blatantly lying about pots.
Deputy Chief Lukas Huber of the National Police convened the first police press conference of the millennium at 12:19 AM and announced that while Akaioji operations had been crippled by the raid, the entrenched criminal nature of the casino meant that it had to be shut down permanently. He also announced that considering that Mitranian governor Hatano Koretada, Syakusen-Graaffsberg mayor Samuel Geiger, and Republic Financial Activities Commission chairman Cathrin Harrer (who holds ultimate authority over the issuing of gambling permits) are all members of the Party of Social Reformists and all hold shares in the Dragon's owning company, Brightstar Entertainment Holdings Group Co. Ltd. Inc., K.G., investigators had begun looking into whether or not the PSR might hold any ties to organized crime. Considering that the PSR is politically in control of Mitrania (the government of which also holds a share in Brightstar) on the verge of holding a majority in the Diet, proceeding with an investigation may prove risky. More information will be available as this story develops.
The Auspicious Dragon was opened in late June 4997 after five years of construction and paperwork. The Dragon promised 'luxurois [sic] nights of great fun at the world pinnavcle [sic] of gameing [sic]'. Expectations ran high on its success as was the biggest casino yet since the relegalization of gambling in Hulstria and Gao-Soto, with even the democratic socialist Free Social Union's newspaper 'The Daily Guide' praising it as entertainment for the commonfolk and deeming it representative of the image of all gambling in the country.
SoSV mod hailed as 'greatest of our time'Stephanie Steinberger
12:14 AM (HGS) 1 January 5000'A New Era: Final Days of Dovani', a mod for the massively popular Kazulian grand strategy game
Souls of Steel V, was fully released at midnight to celebrate the New Year. A total conversion add-on for the game, the mod - 'ANE' for short - depicts an alternate history in which Gao-Soto won the Great Dovanian War, running rampant across West Dovani and becoming a premier world superpower. But it has been winning critical acclaim not primarily for its style, but for its exploration of an already standard-fare premise without unconscious optimism about life under a fascist regime
à la The Man in the Great Tower.
Opening in 4975, the mod depicts a world in which fascist Solentia joined the Coalition of Nations, threatening Deltaria, which had decided to move up the international pecking order as a deterrent against Coalition aggression. In the portrayed universe, Rowiet anti-reformist statesman Kang Jae-Geun did not die at the beginning of the war, instead reassuming a more prominent role in Dranian politics and driving the country into poverty while slowly slipping into dementia.
After winning the war, with the future of Yarwood's Autonomous State of Dankoku secured, the north of the old Rowiet Union shattered into a Mpakoalanesque tapestry of warlord states, Gao-Soto invaded New Verham and Bianjie in 4962 and annexed Midway in 4963 in an attempt to dam the Midway Canal, drying the Sea of Carina and creating a whole new expanse of land to expand into. This misguided move ruined the world economy, alienating Solentia from Gao-Soto, and prompting Coo. Min. for Will Tanigawa Kazuki into leading a group of extremist members of the Imperial Front (even by Front standards) in a coup against the government. An aging Emperor Mugendjikara, who had been amassing more power over the years, foolishly decided to de-annex Sekoku and send Tanigawa there to preside as its Grand Counselor to keep him away from Idōwa. In this position, Tanigawa could engage in a grand plot to destabilize the world and bring about thermonuclear war in order to cleanse all non-Kunihito, and engaged in brutal repression of his subjects to achieve this goal to a degree that made Gao-Soto proper seem equivalent to Rutania in freedom.
As a Sekowan assassin attempts to kill the childless Emperor at the start of the mod's plot, he sees fit to finally convene an Imperial Regency Council as stipulated by the Constitution, made up of reactionary Prime Minister Imperial Grand Marshal Kidehi Chojo, reformist Coo. Min. for Functioning Ina Tomotada, militarist Field Marshal Sano Katsukiyo, and the 'Sekokist' Acting Coo. Min. for Will, the DSJC/UPF's leader, Tanaka Hikomichi. When Mugendjikara dies, the four will inevitably fight a bloody civil war against each other in a bid to win over the Imperial Diet and amend the Constitution to allow themselves to be the sole regent and thus inheritor of Mugendjikara's powers.
From the alpha testing days, the mod built significant rapport among the gaming community, which has been flooded with memes about 'based gamer Tanigawa' and 'funi stick man' (in reference to former Rowiet aide Ryon Hyun-Shik, who in the world of ANE becomes the most brutal of the most brutal of warlords in a deluded and dementia-driven effort to revive the Kyo Empire by resurrecting Choesun IV). Even the developers have admitted that the explosive growth of the fandom has proven problematic, but ultimately it looks like ANE will be an integral part of the SoSV community for a long time to come.
Cult claims Terra is game played by godsChristopher Wandesleben
7:45 PM (HGS) 31 December 5000Yagi Tanaka, the leader of a Luthorische Bai-based cult known as the Society of the Great Revelation, has declared the world to be a game played by gods made manifest in political parties. According to Yagi, these gods play with reality, altering the political future to be good or bad solely for the...
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