Characters / Von Der Asche

Europe

United Kingdom

Official Name: United Kingdom

Ruling Party: Liberal Party (Coalition)

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• The Good Kingdom: The United Kingdom in 1974 is America's steadfast ally, and the first line of defence in the Cold War against Germany.
• Vestigial Empire: Following the Second World War, most of Britain's colonies have found independence in one form or another.
• Western Terrorists: Much like the 1974 of real life, The Troubles are ongoing and even more chaotic than our timeline. Unlike our timeline, however, the IRA's two factions are the socialist Worker's IRA and the clerical fascist National IRA, who have differing views on what a unified Ireland should look like.

Elizabeth II

Role: Monarch^note Figurehead

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Robin Day

Role: Prime Minister^note Country Leader

Party: Liberal Party (Coalition)

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Tony Benn

Ideology: Libertarian Socialism

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Jim Callaghan

Ideology: Social Democracy

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Francis Pym

Ideology: Liberal Conservatism

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Keith Joseph

Ideology: Social Conservatism

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Enoch Powell

Ideology: Social Conservatism

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French State

^{Flag of the People's Republic of France} 

Official Name: French State, People's Republic of France (Foucault)

Ruling Party: BN

Ideology: Fascism

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• Internal Reformist: All of the possible candidates who can be voted President of the French Republic by the Parliament (François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac and Édouard Balladur) will call for social welfare, worker rights and gender equality.

Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour

Role: President^note Country Leader

Party: BN

Ideology: Fascism

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Jacques Chirac

Role: President^note Country Leader (Tixier-Vignancour Succession)

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Édouard Balladur

Role: President^note Country Leader (Tixier-Vignancour Succession)

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François Mitterrand

Role: President^note Country Leader (Tixier-Vignancour Succession)

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Michel Foucault

Role: Country Leader (M1V Takeover)

Party: Mouvement du 1er Vendémiaire (M1V)

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• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Foucault claims that his revolution will not be civil, with reactionaries being arrested and shamed by M1V members.

Edmond Jouhaud

Role: President^note Country Leader (Military Coup)

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• Military Coup: If the French parliament fails to choose a President after Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour's resignation, Jouhaud will lead his soldiers into the Parliament building and force them to make him President.

Kingdom of Italy

Official Name: Kingdom of Italy

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Galeazzo Ciano

Role: Prime Minister^note Country Leader

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Augusto De Marsanich

Role: Prime Minister^note Country Leader (Ciano Succession)

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Independent State of Croatia

Official Name: Independent State of Croatia

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• Foreign Ruling Class: King Tomislav's cabinet is stacked with Italian immigrants, while the Croats are discriminated against inside their own country.
• Puppet State: Despite its name, the Independent State of Croatia is an Italian puppet kingdom ruled by an Italian king.
• La Résistance: The Yugoslav Partisans have never stopped fighting the Second World War. Even after Tito was arrested and executed, the movement continues to grow, and people dream of a free Croatia, a free Yugoslavia.

Tomislav II

Role: Monarch^note Country Leader

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Cyprus

Official Name: Cyprus, Federal Republic of Cyprus (Cypriot Revolt)

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Gino Birindelli

Role: Country Leader

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Rauf Denktaş

Role: President^note Country Leader (Cypriot Revolt)

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Großgermanisches Reich

Official Name: Großgermanisches Reich^Tr. Greater Germanic Reich

Ruling Party: National Socialist German Workers' Party (Orthodox Conservative)

Ideology: National Socialism

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• Cult of Personality: Führer Adolf Hitler has been revered as a godlike figure for decades. Many legends are attributed to him, and his name and face are plastered across Germany. Worshipping Hitler and following his word are an integral part of surviving in Germany, and every politician pledges their loyalty to him.
• The Empire: Nearly thirty-one years since the end of World War II, the Greater Germanic Reich still stands as the apex of Europe. With its borders stretching from Nanzig to Astrachan, the swastika rises above a mountain of corpses.
• Evil Colonialist: Germany's policies in Eastern Europe amount to securing lebensraum for German settlers by deporting, enslaving, killing, or Germanizing the natives, who are deemed subhuman.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Helmut Goebbels is the Reich Minister of Propaganda (the same position once held by his father), Edda Göring is a prominent member of the NSDAP, and Heider Heydrich is an instructor in the SS, holding the rank of Oberführer. In real life, Helmut Goebbels was killed by his own father as a teenager in the closing days of World War II, while the other two lived mostly normal lives after the war ended.
• Illegal Religion: Judaism, Freemasonry and Jehovah's Witnesses have been banned entirely since the Munich Constitution was ratified in 1958.
• Please Select New City Name: Berlin was renamed Germania following the completion of Albert Speer's Welthauptstadt Germania project.
• Secret Police: Led by Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo serves as Germany's secret police force, monitoring all Germans for any possible signs of dissent among the population.
• State Sec: The Sicherheitsdienst and the Schutzstaffel work together to police anti-party activity.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The four organisations of the Reichssicherheitshauptaumt work in harmony, albeit a harmony that is brutal and often tense.
• Villainous Legacy: Although Adolf Hitler is long dead by 1974, Nazism has ruled Germany for 41 years as an oppressive police state. Although Germany can liberalise, Nazism will always hold a large sway over the country and population.

Reinhard Heydrich

Role: Führer^note Country Leader

Party: National Socialist German Workers' Party (Orthodox Conservative)

Ideology: National Socialism

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• Assassin Outclassin': Unlike his real life counterpart, this Heydrich survived the attempt made on his life in 1942, and later made his way through four more attempts.
• Illegal Religion: One of Heydrich's first actions is to completely purge Catholicism from the Reich, as he believes it to be infested by corruption and Judaism, and is suspicious of the Pope as well. Once the plans in Germany are set in motion, Heydrich will extend his anti-Catholic crusade to the rest of Europe.
• Klingon Promotion: On 1st September 1970, Heydrich sent a death squad after Chancellor Albert Speer and blamed it on resistance members in the region. Forty-eight hours later, Heydrich became the next Chancellor by near-unanimous vote, as soldiers of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler were occupying the area just outside the Reichstag.
• Red Baron: Heydrich is known as the Devil of Nancy, in addition to the numerous sobriquets he had in real life.
• Regime Change: Heydrich supports the overthrow of pro-American (and even unreliably pro-German) leaders in countries such as Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Baldur von Schirach

Ideology: National Socialism

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• Nazi Nobleman: Schirach is a member of Šěrach family, a Germanized Sorbian noble family, and the leader of the Heterodox Conservative faction of the NSDAP.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Schirach dies in August 1974, eight months after game start.

Adolf Eichmann

Role: Reichstagpräsident

Ideology: National Socialism

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• Final Solution: If he takes power following Heydrich's assassination, Eichmann will restart the Final Solution in earnest.

Hans Modrow

Party: National Socialist German Workers' Party (Orthodox Conservative)

Ideology: National Socialism

Leader of the Orthodox Conservative Faction.

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• Historical Villain Upgrade: Justified. In real life, Modrow was a communist politician notable for being the last communist premier of the German Democratic Republic. Here, he leads the hardline Orthodox Conservatives in the Nazi Party, which seems like the complete opposite to his beliefs in real life, but Modrow did admit that he was a rabid anti-Bolshevik Nazi during WWII, and claimed that he was reformed by Marxism-Leninism.

Franz Josef Strauss

Party: National Socialist German Workers' Party (National Militarist)

Ideology: National Socialism

Leader of the National Militarist Faction.

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• War Hawk: Strauss is the leader of the National Militarists faction of the NSDAP.

Hans-Dietrich Genscher

Party: National Socialist German Workers' Party (Liberal Technocrat)

Ideology: National Socialism

Leader of the Liberal Technocrat Faction.

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• Internal Reformist: Genscher's Liberal Technocrats seek to create a form of democracy in which local elements are elected by the people, as a sort of census to be gauged by the central government.

Kurt Waldheim

Party: National Socialist German Workers' Party (Heterodox Conservative)

Ideology: National Socialism

Leader of the Heterodox Conservative Faction.

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• Internal Reformist: Pursuing a radically democratic policy, Waldheim advocates for improvement of education, expansion of unemployment insurance and détente with the United States.

Reichskommissariat Ostland

Official Name: Reichskommissariat Ostland

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• La Résistance: RK Ostland is a hotbed for insurgency activity, while all efforts of Germanisation have failed.

Hans Zimmermann

Role: Reichskommissar^note Country Leader

Ideology: National Socialism

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• 0% Approval Rating: No one in RK Ostland likes Zimmermann. Germans, collaborators and partisans alike want a change in leadership, and it's not a question of if, but when he's going to be removed.

Ukraine

Reichskommissariat Ukraine

Official Name: Reichskommissariat Ukraine

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• Balkanize Me: If Ukraine becomes too unstable, the Ukrainian Emergency will occur and the colony will collapse into six competing factions, while the Crimean Peninsula remains directly administered by Germany.
• Civil War: The Ukrainian Emergency will see Reichsdeutsche settlers, Volga Germans, active and former Ukrainian collaborators, Banderites, Cossacks, Red Army remnants, and various militias duke it out to determine the future of Ukraine.

Joachim Peiper

Role: Reichskommissar^note Country Leader

Ideology: National Socialism

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• Reassigned to Antarctica: As his star was rising in Germany, Peiper was sent to Ukraine by the government, which hoped that someone would shoot him and the problem would be gone. However, Peiper has not been shot yet, and his prospects are good after Reinhard Heydrich seized power in Germania.

Ukrainian Civil War

Military Administration in the Ukraine

Official Name: Military Administration in the Ukraine

Ruling Party: MVU

Ideology: National Socialism

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Albert Schnez

Role: Country Leader

Party: MVU

Ideology: National Socialism

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National Salvation Front

Official Name: National Salvation Front

Ruling Party: OUN-SS

Ideology: National Socialism

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• Les Collaborateurs: The National Salvation Front is ruled by the Ukrainian SS and the pro-German Melnykite faction of the OUN. In the Emergency, they receive assistance from Germany in exchange for creating a pro-German, Nazi Ukraine, though the mutual understanding is not guaranteed to last after victory.

Yury Ferentsevych

Role: Country Leader

Party: OUN-SS

Ideology: National Socialism

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People's Directorate of Ukraine

Official Name: People's Directorate of Ukraine

Ruling Party: UNRA

Ideology: Despotism

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• Defector from Decadence: A sizable number of personnel in the Directorate are former members of the 14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galicia," led by Marian Tsiolko, who abandoned the National Salvation Front when it became apparent that they had no interest in creating a truly independent and republican Ukraine.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The People's Directorate of Ukraine consists of the liberal capitalist Polesian Sich, Red Army remnants, SS defectors and various local militias, only unified by a desire to create an independent, anti-Nazi Ukraine. Each man knows that the only alternative for cooperation is death.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The chain of command in this faction's military is weak, with commanders frequently issuing arbitrary personalistic orders.

Taras Bulba-Borovets

Role: Country Leader

Party: UNRA

Ideology: Despotism

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Ukrainian Liberation Government

Official Name: Ukrainian Liberation Government

Ruling Party: Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv-Ukrayins'ka Povstans'ka Armiia^note Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Ukrainian Insurgent Army

Ideology: Ultranationalism

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• Cult of Personality: Despite having been dead for two and a half decades by the start of the mod, Stepan Bandera is still venerated as a hero, martyr, and patriotic father figure by Vasyl Kuk and the Ukrainian Liberation Government.
• Inspirational Martyr: Ever since he was killed in a German concentration camp in 1947, Stepan Bandera has been a martyr, emblematic of the Ukrainian far-right's struggle for 'liberation'.

Vasyl Kuk

Role: Country Leader

Party: Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv-Ukrayins'ka Povstans'ka Armiia^note Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Ukrainian Insurgent Army

Ideology: Ultranationalism

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Don-Sloboda Republic

Official Name: Don-Sloboda Republic

Ruling Party: Slobodtsy

Ideology: Despotism

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• Days of Future Past: As a Cossack republic, the Don-Sloboda Republic's military invokes the imagery of the historical Cossack hosts, albeit with modern machine guns and diesel-fueled technicals replacing the shashkas and hay-fed horses of the past.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The numerous differences between the Don and Sloboda Cossack Hosts, though minor, are enough to lead to administrative and organisational issues, which might spell doom for the young republic.

Nikolay Fyodorov

Role: Country Leader

Party: Slobodtsy

Ideology: Despotism

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Volgan Republic

Official Name: Volgan Republic

Ruling Party: NER

Ideology: Despotism

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• Contempt Crossfire: The Volga Germans, who have lived in the area for centuries, are viewed by the Russian and Ukrainian majority as Nazi collaborators, while the more recent Reichsdeutsche settlers look down on them, viewing them as insufficiently German.
• Corrupt Politician: The Volgan government is plagued by corruption and dishonesty, and is trusted by no one, not even the Germans in the area.

Eduard Rossel

Role: Country Leader

Party: NER

Ideology: Despotism

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Moskowien

Reichskommissariat Moskowien

Official Name: Reichskommissariat Moskowien

Ruling Party: Arbeitsbereich Osten der Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

Ideology: National Socialism

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• Egopolis: Kleistburg, a city built atop the ruins of Moscow to serve as RK Moskowien's capital, is named after German marshal Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist.

Siegfried Kasche

Role: Reichskommissar^note Country Leader

Party: Arbeitsbereich Osten der Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

Ideology: National Socialism

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• Evil Colonialist: Even by the standards of the other Reichskommissare, Kasche's rule is hell on earth, with rapes and murders of natives by the Einsatzgruppen being far too common.

Vladimir Granitov

Party: Russian All-Military Union

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Bronislav Kaminski

Party: People's Socialist Party of Russia

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Mikhail Oktan

Party: Union for the Struggle Against Bolshevism

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Caucasus

Reichskommissariat Kaukasus

Official Name: Reichskommissariat Kaukasus

Ruling Party: AOdNSDAP - OK

Ideology: National Socialism

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• Balkanize Me: RK Kaukasus can collapse into eight different independent countries, in addition to the government.
• Les Collaborateurs: Compared to the other German Reichskommissariate in Eastern Europe, RK Kaukasus is relatively stable, since the native peoples are slightly more willing to collaborate.
• The Quisling: Each of RK Kaukasus' Generalkommissare except Kalmykia (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kuban, Terek and the Caucasus Mountains) is governed by a native Generalkommissar alongside a German supervision committee.
• La Résistance: The Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia has been fighting an insurgency against the German invaders since 1973, rendering Armenia the most hostile place to the RK administration.

Theodor Oberländer

Role: Reichskommissar^note Country Leader

Party: AOdNSDAP - OK

Ideology: National Socialism

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• A Lighter Shade of Black: While Oberländer is an ardent Nazi and the head of a German colony, his pragmatism and willingness to work with native collaborators makes him relatively better than at least Kasche, if no one else.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Oberländer is much more willing to work with native collaborators than his colleagues in the other Eastern European Reichskommissariate are, which has contributed to the stability of Kaukasus.

Günter Grass

Role: Country Leader

Ideology: Anocracy

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Bernhard Plettner

Role: Reichskommissar^note Country Leader

Ideology: Despotism

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Karl Carsents

Role: Reichskommissar^note Country Leader

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Richard Stücklen

Role: Reichskommissar^note Country Leader

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Herbert Backe

Role: Reichskommissar^note Country Leader

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Asia

Russian Federal Socialist Republic

^{Flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic} 

Official Name: Russian Federal Socialist Republic, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Varennikov)

Ruling Party: Russian Socialist Party

Ideology: Anocracy

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• 0% Approval Rating: Mikhail Frunze, who succeeded Lenin in this timeline and subsequently handed the Nazis an easy victory in the Second World War, is so widely hated across the former USSR that there are virtually no Frunzists left.
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite being called the Russian Federal Socialist Republic, the country is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, albeit one ruled by the ex-communist politicians of the Socialist Party.
• Prison Riot: Early in the mod, a massive prison uprising occurs in Norilsk, with the inmates being supported and armed by Russian communists.
• Vestigial Empire: After its defeat in World War II, the Soviet Union lost large swathes of its territories in the west, including its four largest cities Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and Minsk, and was eventually dissolved in 1955. By 1974, Russia has a whole generation who has known nothing but war and hardship.
• War Refugees: Countless refugees fled to Siberia in the aftermath of the German conquest of the western USSR, creating a homeless crisis that the RFSR still has been unable to solve.
• Western Terrorists: The RFSR is plagued by both far-left and far-right terrorists, with the former supporting a prison riot in Norilsk, while the latter kidnapped and murdered Valentin Surchanov, the chairman of the Chuvash Autonomous Region.

Nikolay Baybakov

Role: Prime Minister^note Country Leader

Party: Russian Socialist Party

Ideology: Anocracy

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Alexei Kosygin

Role: President^note Figurehead, Country Leader

Party: Russian Socialist Party

Ideology: Anocracy

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Yuri Andropov

Role: Interior Minister, Country Leader (Election Fraud)

Party: Russian Socialist Party

Ideology: Anocracy

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Leonid Brezhnev

Party: KPR

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Yuri Orlov

Role: Prime Minister^note Country Leader (Elections)

Ideology: Social Democracy

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Andrei Sakharov

Role: Prime Minister^note Country Leader (Elections)

Ideology: Liberalism

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Vladimir Bukovsky

Role: Prime Minister^note Country Leader (Elections)

Ideology: Liberal Bukovsky

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Alexander Ginzburg

Role: Prime Minister^note Country Leader (Elections)

Ideology: Social Conservatism

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Empire of Japan

Official Name: Empire of Japan

Ruling Party: Jiyūtō - Miki Faction^note Liberal Party

Ideology: Liberalism

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• Foreign Ruling Class: A small number of Japanese settlers are still ruling over the downtrodden natives in Korea, and tensions have reached a boiling point since the loss of China.
• Plot-Triggering Death: The death of Prince Fumimaro Konoe on 16 December 1974, the main backer of the ruling Socialist Party, begins a political crisis, as both opposition parties start to scheme in the hopes of seizing power through a snap election or vote of no confidence.
• La Résistance: The Korean Anti-Japanese United Army, led by Kim Jong-il, is the main violent opposition group in Korea, seeking to kick out the Japanese by force and restoring Korea's independence.
• Vestigial Empire: Since losing China in 1961, the Empire of Japan has been plagued by economic woes, while its other vassals have begun to consider leaving its fold.

Shōwa

Role: Monarch^note Figurehead

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Miki Takeo

Role: Prime Minister

Party: Jiyūtō - Miki Faction^note Liberal Party

Ideology: Liberalism

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Eda Saburo

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Ōhira Masayoshi

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Nakasone Yasuhiro

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Empire of Great Manchuria

Official Name: Empire of Great Manchuria

Ruling Party: MX

Ideology: Fascism

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• Black Market: For decades, the Manchurian economy has significantly relied on the opium trade. Japanese corporations maintain large poppy plantations and sell the opium to dens across China and Manchuria, resulting in widespread drug addiction while government officials pocket the profits.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Japanese corporations in Manchuria fuel the black market with their poppy plantations and pay their workers low wages for the dangerous conditions they have to work in.
• MegaCorp: The South Manchuria Railway Company is a conglomerate consisting of all companies running Manchuria's many factories, where Chinese workers have to work under hellish conditions for low pay.
• Puppet State: One of the most infamous real life examples of this trope in the mod. On paper, Manchuria is a Sino-Manchu state allied with Japan, though it is little more than a glorified Japanese colony in reality.
• Settling the Frontier: Manchuria has seen several waves of Japanese settlers in the decades following its creation. Additionally, thousands of fleeing European Jews were allowed to settle in Manchuria by Japan.

Wanwen Emperor

Role: Monarch^note Country Leader

Party: MX

Ideology: Fascism

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• Internal Reformist: Pujie has presented himself as a benevolent reformer by pushing for mass literacy and technological advancements, turning Manchukuo away from what amounts to a concentration camp, without pissing Japan off. Though still largely powerless, he is a bit more assertive than his brother and predecessor.
• Puppet King: Like his brother before him, Pujie has very little power, and is little more than a rubber stamp for the Japanese to exploit Manchuria.

Republic of China

Official Name: Republic of China

Party: New Kuomintang

Ideology: Anocracy

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• Absolute Xenophobe: The briefly existing Second East Turkestan Republic attempted to "Turkify" Xinjiang during the war of liberation, and was only pacified in 1973.
• Pyrrhic Victory: In 1962, the Chinese successfully kicked the Japanese occupiers out, but at a great cost: thousands of villages were razed, millions of people died, and China's coast remains blockaded by the Japanese, meaning that all trade must come through Russia and Afghanistan. Regardless, having defeated Japan once, the Chinese are willing to go all the way to liberate the Northeast and Taiwan, which still remain under Japanese control.

He Yingqin

Role: President

Party: New Kuomintang

Ideology: Anocracy

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Zhang Guotao

Party: Chinese Communist Party

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Zhou Enlai

Party: Chinese Communist Party

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Oceania

Commonwealth of Oceania

Official Name: Commonwealth of Oceania

Ruling Party: Australian Labor Party - Right

Ideology: Social Democracy

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Gough Whitlam

Role: Prime Minister

Party: Australian Labor Party - Right

Ideology: Social Democracy

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Jim Cairns

Ideology: Libertarian Socialism

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Robert Katter

Party: Australian Labor Party - Right

Ideology: Social Democracy

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Andrew Peacock

Ideology: Liberalism

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Malcolm Fraser

Ideology: Liberal Conservatism

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North America

United States of America

Official Name: United States of America

Ruling Party: Republican Party

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George W. Romney

Role: President

Party: Republican Party

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• Our Presidents Are Different: Romney is President Minority, being the first Mormon to win a Presidential election.

Ronald Reagan

Role: President (1976 Election)

Party: Democratic Party (Progressive)

Ideology: Social Democracy

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• Irony: Without the influence of the Soviet Union, Reagan took a hard shift to the left, instead of the right like in real life. Should he become President, the term Reaganomics will have the completely opposite meaning from real life, involving increased welfare programs and taxes.

Edward Brooke

Role: President (1976 Election)

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• Breaking the Glass Ceiling: If he wins the 1976 Presidential election, Brooke is noted to be the first African-American to sit in the Oval Office, just eight years after the Civil Rights Act was passed.

George C. Wallace

Role: President (1976 Election)

Party: Democratic Party (Progressive)

Ideology: Social Democracy

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Canada

Official Name: Canada

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• Occupiers Out of Our Country: Since the national government mishandled the Rivière incident (which many see as a deliberate extermination campaign), mainstream Québécois politics have taken a sovereigntist position, as people rally behind the Front de la Liberté du Québec and the far-right Ralliement créditiste. If not dealt with soon, the province might see to its independence.

Pierre Trudeau

Role: Prime Minister^note Country Leader

Party: Liberals

Ideology: Liberalism

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Africa

Central African Republic

Official Name: Central African Republic

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• Puppet State: The Central African Republic is a German client state led by Joseph-Dietrich Mobutu formed from the former Reichskolonie Zentralafrika, which was abandoned by Albert Speer in the late 1960s due to its unprofitability.
• Space-Filling Empire: The Central African Republic is a massive country composed of the French and Belgian Congos, Ruanda-Urundi, Gabon, Cameroon, and Ubangi-Shari (which is called the Central African Republic in OTL).

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