Recap / IJA Guangdong

Guangdong Recap:
Index | Suzuki's Guangdong | Yasuda Crisis | Sony's Guangdong | Matsushita's Guangdong | Fujitsu's Guangdong | Lam Haau-cyun's Flashbacks | Opium Trade War | Hitachi Coup | Hitachi's Guangdong | Flavor Events | General Oil Crisis and Guangdong Riots | Imperial Japanese Army's Guangdong

You are not in control.
Look upon the mess you have made.
Look what you have made us do.

There is value in the Three Pearls; there is even some value in the land outside of it.
There is no value in the people who live there.

While the Chief Executive and his cabinet have been managing Guangdong affairs, Nagano and the Imperial 23rd Army have been waiting in the wings, watching the money grubbing businessmen send his men to their deaths as part of the Product Testing Research Group missions in the name of naked greed and profit. As far as Nagano is concerned, the experiment of Guangdong is a farce to the civilising Pan Asian mission of the Co-Prosperity Sphere and now, with the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council being proven to be unable to deal with the riots, the Prime Minister of Japan has given Nagano clearance to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war onto the colonial state.

As martial law is declared, the Imperial Japanese Army descend onto Guangdong, showing even less mercy than the police and Kenpeitai that preceded them, slaughtering rioters and protestors with abandon. Each of the Chief Executives are apprehended by the Army except for Li (who is beaten to death by the soldiers while being arrested) and Komai (who is shot dead by Lee Chun).

Once Nagano and his general staff have seized control over the state, they swiftly begin dismantling everything Guangdong once was, viewing its system of governance as a perversion of Pan-Asian values and a failed experiment that needs to be disposed of. The Legislative Council is abolished alongside the Product Testing Research Group, with whatever findings that can be salvaged being sent back to the Home Islands and the rest being sold to the warlords of China. Once this has been accomplished, they begin their goal of turning Guangdong into a military administration, a militarised defence state designed to bear the brunt of the seemingly inevitable Great Asian War as the Nanjing government watches the actions taking place against the riots with disgust.

A Tribunal is held by the IJA in Kōshu to sentence those Nagano and his cohort hold responsible for the corruption of Guangdong. While Matsushita (disowned now from his adopted family and called Hirata Masaharu) is given a life sentence owing to his connections on the Home Islands, every other Chief Executive is sentenced to death by hanging (except for Komai, who is posthumously sentenced to death by firing squad). Both Tsuchida Kuniyasu and Ōmori Kan are sentenced to life with the possibility of parole while Stanley Ho is executed without trial. Many other trials continue with haste, with those deemed the most guilty being hanged publicly across Guangdong, adorning the cranes and skyscrapers of the land. Thousands of Japanese businessmen, including Yamauchi Hiroshi, are also thrown behind bars.

Amid the riots, Lee Chun is killed when a bomb prematurely detonates in his hand, with Officer Lam informing the rest of the Lee family of his fate and advising them to leave the city, finding refuge under a squalid overpass as Wai Lee leaves her family to work in a bullet farm, knowing none of them have any future left. If Komai was the Chief Executive, Chun is instead gunned down in a dramatic stand-off where he executes Komai for his crimes after assaulting the headquarters of Hitachi, inspiring the rest of the Guangdong People's Anti Japanese Guerrilla to continue to provide fierce resistance against the Japanese army., meanwhile, the IJA descend on his family in retribution with Lee Hei being bayoneted to death by the soldiers while the rest of his family escape the apartment but not the city with only Wai Chun surviving as the rest of her family can not endure the hardship.

Yasukawa Yoshiko is evacuated from Guangdong to return to Japan thanks to her family name, resigning from her role as journalist, aware that even if while is safe in Japan, a piece of her will always be trapped in Guangdong. Meanwhile, Lam Haau-cyun turns in his badge and resigns from what was once the Guangdong Police Force, now known as the Auxiliary Enforcement Corps of the Military Presence in Guangdong, having no wish to serve the IJA butchers in their mission, eventually emigrating to California, a place where he will never have to be called Hayashi Kōsen again.

As the broadcasts sign off for the final time, a newspaper headline proclaims the State of Guangdong to be abolished, devoured by the anger of the people inside it and put down by the Imperial Japanese Army, it appears that Guangdong has finally woken up from its Silicon Dream.

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This route provides examples of:

• Answer Cut: In the Hitachi scenario, Chun and various other resistance members try to break into the Legislative Complex to assassinate Komai, but their old Nissan pickup truck can't pull the gate down. As they brainstorm a solution, the truck leaps forward and takes the gate with it, solving their problem.
• Any Last Words?: In Hitachi's route, a line of Guangdong rioters are put on the gallows and asked if they have any last words. Together, they chant "Avenge Lee Chun! Death of foreign demons!"
• Appeal to Force: With a cadre of armed men and an antique pistol in one hand, Nagano marches into the Legislative Council and announces the arrest of everyone present, shooting one prostrating representative to show that he is 100% serious.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • In a non-Komai Chief Executive route, Lee Chun has his arm blown apart from his body after a bomb prematurely detonates shortly before the IJA make their entrance into Guangdong.
  • A GFT rioter loses his hand when he falls on a mine, with some IJA soldiers mocking his use of Cantonese instead of Japanese and and jamming the burning end of a cigarette into his stump.
• Armies Are Evil: Of all the possible outcomes for the Guangdong region, the 23rd Army taking direct control and rampaging across it in an orgy of Rape, Pillage, and Burn is by far the worst, even compared to the literal slavery of the Manchurian model. Komai might be the worst possible normal leader of Guangdong, but Nagano is Guangdong's failstate.
• Asshole Victim: Every member of the Legislative Council is judged for their crimes in the Kōshu tribunal and given varying degrees of prison sentences, with some like Ibuka being given a death sentence.
• Allohistorical Allusion: Should the IJA intervene, the resolution resembles the aftermath of the Sepoy mutiny of 1857: the anti-corporate rebellion is brutally suppressed by the regular army, while the corporate rule is replaced by direct imperial rule.
• Badass Boast: After the IJA coup, Song is escorted out of Guangdong by a joint Japanese and Chinese convoy. After reaching the border, he is asked by a Japanese sergeant if the Japanese soldiers gave him any hassle, to which he replies that, if they did, they would all be dead. The rest of the conversation is just as icy and the façade of diplomacy falls.
• Battle Couple: A couple participates in the riots and makes a last stand in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall after Hitachi is deposed by the IJA. The two kiss each other a final time before they talk out the entrance to go down fighting.
• Bayonet Ya: Nagano's 23rd Army make liberal use of bayonets to put down the rioters, being splattered in an array of black, pink and red as a result.
• Blatant Lies:
  • The IJA claim that all are equal in the eyes of military law, regardless of origin. Such claims a blatantly proven false by the exceptional brutality and racism against the Chinese, along with certain elements of the Japanese leadership being let off the hook like Miyazaki.
  • While the IJA are honest about martial law remaining in place until Guangdong is pacified, they claim that the regime they’ve established will be temporary, an obvious lie that Yoshiko repeatedly questions, to the chagrin of the military men.
• Boom in the Hand: Lee Chun has a bomb prematurely detonate while holding it, killing him almost instantly if Komai is not Chief Executive.
• Bring It: A group of IJA soldiers find graffiti messages in an empty, scorched village, made by the Guerrilla to urge resistance against Japan. The sergeant chuckles at the challenge, confident that these rebels will be quashed like so many have in before.'
• Cavalry Betrayal: Nagano's ultramilitarists arrive in Guangdong to suppress anti-corporate riots, but later dismantle those corporations and kill several of their leaders.
• Cigarette Burns: Two IJA soldiers drag a GFT member up the slopes of Baiyun Mountain, who lost his hand from landing on a mine, and drive a cigarette into his arm stump after mocking his Zhujin status.
• Cliffhanger: Though the corporate dream that drove Guangdong for the past two decades lies shattered and the hopes of the people are violently crushed, the possibility of war with China still looms over the horizon. The IJA quickly repurposes the state as a military base for the coming conflict, though whether they can survive is a tale for the next decade.
• Cold-Blooded Torture:
  • Following the IJA's takeover of Guangdong, Matsushita gets his tongue mutilated and some of his teeth pulled out by them, leaving him in a speechless state.
  • A man gets his head repeatedly dunked into the water used for rice stalks, as his assailants demand names from him. After failing to extract any information, partially due to not giving him any time to process the questions, they dunk his head one last time and place their foot on it to suffocate him in mud and water over the course of a few minutes.
• Controllable Helplessness: If the IJA takes over Guangdong, all national focuses will be completed automatically, representing that the player is unable to stop the IJA from destroying Guangdong and turning it into their own military base in preparation for the Great Asian War.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The IJA torture captured rioters for the names of their collaborators, even threatening to burn down innocent villages as a form of psychological torment.
• Create Your Own Hero: Exclusively in Hitachi's route, Nagano's coup inadvertently leads to the creation of the Guangdong People's Anti-Japanese Guerrilla, who fill the void left behind by the GFT and CCL to continue the war of resistance against the Japanese.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: In every scenario sans the Hitachi one, a woman is horrifically dragged across a tarmac that mutilates her arms and leaves behind a bloody trail as she attempts to crawl away, before she's taken to an alley to be killed.
• Dead Guy on Display: Those executed in the Kōshu tribunal are left to hang across the Three Pearls from the cranes and skyscrapers across Port Shōri, to the Fortaleza do Monte in Macau and the Zhenhai Tower in Guangzhou, filling the air with the stench of rot.
• Developer's Foresight: A unique scenario plays out if the IJA overthrows Komai, since there are a number of differences from the other three routes that are accounted for. For example, one event follows a rioter attempt to flee IJA soldiers by jumping out a window and hoping a suicide net catches him. Komai removes these nets in his route, so the event doesn't fire.
• Double Meaning: One of the laws established in the IJA coup comments on the end of the Silicon Dream and "How wrong they were, for their Midas hands cracked before our Hearts of Iron." Not only does this refer to the disempowerment of the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council, but it also carries a meta meaning with how every gameplay mechanic, typically associated with the mod, is disabled. This effectively reverts Guangdong to a state of vanilla-style HOI4 gameplay, where there is no focus besides the wargame.
• Didn't Think This Through: Surrounded by fire and IJA soldiers, a rioter rushes up the staircase of a factory and believes he can escape by jumping out the window and playing dead on one of the suicide nets. However, by the time he jumps out, he realizes that the nets have been destroyed by the flames and the only thing he can do is scream as he plummets to his death.
• Dirty Coward: After Nagano announces the arrest of the entire Legislative Council, one representative cows to him and thanks him for taking decisive action against the riots. Nagano's response is to shoot him in the head.
• Disappeared Dad: Lam emigrates to America to start a new life, where it is revealed that his father is dead and was buried in an unmarked grave denoted by a wooden stick. During a visit to the grave, Lam ties a piece of silk to it to mark their history.
• Do Wrong, Right: The IJA consider the State of Guangdong to be a failed experiment, whose systematic greed and corruption let the Riots get out of control. Therefore, the entire state apparatus must be torn down and rebuilt for the IJA's own purposes, creating an nightmarishly oppressive military regime gearing for war against an increasingly rebellious China.
• Downer Ending: Nagano and the IJA taking over is Guangdong's failstate, as it ends with the IJA going on an incredibly violent rampage throughout the region, and completely dissolving Guangdong as a country.
• Dramatically Missing the Point:
  • The IJA report that the Zhujin officers draw the most ire from the populace, since their collaboration with Japan makes them traitors in their eyes. Unfortunately, the IJA misinterprets the contempt as a sign that a majority-Japanese force should be used.
  • In one of their reports leading up to the coup, the IJA point out that the Legislative Council is barely accountable, festering with corruption and entirely guided by private enterprises pursing short-term profits over security. The assessment is not incorrect; there are multiple events of the Legislative Council and its member corporations exploiting and killing their workers for money's sake. Unfortunately, rather than extend compassion to the Chinese people, they use this as an excuse to prove that civilian rule is a failure, and that military rule is needed to abolish the increasingly unruly state, until it has folded back into their own definition of a "righteous" pan-Asian country.
• Due to the Dead: If the IJA are deposing Komai, Chun and several militia members will arrange their deceased comrades in even rows as a brief moment of respect before they will be dumped into a mass grave by the Japanese.
• Dwindling Party: In Hitachi's route, Chun's raid party to kill Komai is slowly picked off as they march into the Government Complex, with one riddled with automatic gunfire and two more burned alive when one of Komai's guards shoots a Zhdanov cocktail. By the time Chun reaches the whimpering Chief Executive, he's the sole survivor.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: The IJA have been given a blank cheque to violently crush all resistance in Guangdong, on behalf of the Japanese government, to create a loyal military bastion, regardless of who suffers. After the cities on the Pearl River delta are subjugated, the IJA turn their attention to controlling the rural hinterlands with violent reprisals.
• Eat the Rich: The IJA dismantles all corporations and slaughters corporate leaders after taking over.
• Elaborate Underground Base: If he was the Chief Executive, Komai fortifies himself in a base underneath the Legislative Complex. Buried deep within layers of maintenance tunnels, it contains weeks’ worth of supplies and reading material, allowing him to wait out the chaos and escape when it is safe to do so.
• Empathic Environment: When Lam visits his father’s unmarked grave after emigrating to America, it is an overcast autumn day on the verge of raining, as Lam contemplates his thoughts of disappointment and disillusionment.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • While it is made up of collaborators who run China as a dictatorship, the Nanjing government is furious at Japan for the sadism and wanton destruction of the IJA in Guangdong, threatening war as a result of their crimes.
  • The Zhujin police officers are collaborators, but they cannot stand for the IJA's naked cruelty in their coup.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: During the Kōshu tribunal, the judge berates Ōmori for not repressing the populace enough and corrupting the police force with "sentimentality", disregarding the value of communication and being accountable to the people.
• Face Death with Dignity: Facing execution after the IJA topple Hitachi, a line of Guangdong rioters show no fear to their captors, with two agreeing that they wouldn't have done anything different, despite begins scared of their looming deaths. Everyone's final words are a chant "Avenge Lee Chun! Death of foreign demons!"
• False Reassurance: An IJA spokesperson tries to reassure the Japanese citizens of Guangdong that they have nothing to fear, but this does little to calm everyone's fears of an impending war with China.
• Fascists' Bed Time: If Matsushita suffers the IJA coup, a broadcast of Matsushita Electric's latest products is interrupted with an emergency broadcast that the country is now under martial law and that a strict curfew is in place, where no one is allowed to leave except for work or basic necessities.
• Foreshadowing: With each mission timeout in the Guangdong riots, signs of an impending IJA coup become more obvious before they actually act:
  • Sixty days after the riots break out, several IJA soldiers feel dissatisfied with how the Chief Executive is responding to it and Nagano feels an itch after shaking the last man's hand in a staff meeting. It's the first signs that the IJA are getting restless and about to make a move, if the Chief Executive doesn't act quickly.
  • The department of communications for the 23rd army makes multiple classified reports on the riots, clearing stating their opinion that the civilian administration is not doing enough to handle the situation and that further efforts are needed because the local security are incapable of containing the Riots. In the second report, they try appealing to the Prime Minister that the long-term benefit of Guangdong is running dry, as the cost of pacification outpaces it, along with the state failing to commit to Pan-Asianism.
  • At first, the Japanese Prime Minister is content to let the civilian institutions take care of the rioters. However, if little improvement is seen, the Prime Minister starts to lose patience and deploys IJA divisions to forcibly bring peace to the situation, setting them up in a good position for a coup. On the other hand, keeping the Prime Minister satisfied at higher levels of intervention risk will cause him to recall the IJA from their positions.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Once the IJA takes power, all the various assorted law descriptions get rewritten to reflect the new leadership.
  • If the IJA intervene against the riots, the player will be locked out of manually selecting focuses. They will automatically complete instead, showing how they have lost control of the situation.
  • The IJA coup also shuts down Guangdong's mechanics one-by-one, not only reflecting the player's loss of control, but also the IJA's destruction of the corporatocracy's foundation.
• Hated by All: The corporate leaders become this in the IJA ending, as the Japanese hate them for their failures and supposed treason, while the Chinese and Zhujin hate them for oppressing them.
• History Repeats: Invoked by Nagano, who believe that the atrocities committed by the Japanese army during the Rape of Nanking will need to be repeated in Guangdong if the riots are to be pacified and for order to be restored.
• Identifying the Body: The Lee family are forced to go to the morgue to identify the remains of Lee Chun after he is killed when a bomb prematurely explodes in his hand.
• Interface Screw: Should the IJA intervene to put down the riots, all of Guangdong's GUIs will be obscured◊ by neon red overlays, symbolizing the IJA taking full control of the state.
• It's Probably Nothing:
  • The members of the Legislative Council do not react to the knocking at the door and they continue to debate various things, having gotten used to the sound of faint blunt noises; Only some of the members notice the doors being assaulted with a breaching tool. It is only when Nagano and his armed guards storm in and announce the abolishment of the State of Guangdong that everyone is attentive.
  • Yamauchi hears shouts and footsteps outside his office, but he ignores them to focus on his orders. He only realizes the severity of the situation when his door is broken down with a battering ram and a shocked Yamauchi is taken away by soldiers forcibly seizing his documents.
• Just in Time: If Japan's intervention risk reaches 100, the IJA coup can be narrowly averted if the GFT and CCL are dismantled before they can act, with Nagano calling off the conspiracy at the Chief Executive's pleas, as well as the reports from the Police and Miyazaki confirming that the conflict is over.
• Kangaroo Court: The Kōshu tribunal is a blatant front used by the IJA to punish Guangdong’s previous leadership and corporate class with trumped up charges of treason, even if some accusations of corruption hold true. Ho is not even given the courtesy of a proper trial should the IJA seize control, instead being read his charges by a group of soldiers and quickly put in front of a firing squad.
• Kick the Dog: A person wielding a strange rifle is shot while on a balcony, tumbles down, and splatters on the pavement in front of Nagano. After wiping his boots, Nagano kicks the body over and calls him a "stupid bastard" when he realizes that the rifle was an air gun.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Fallen into a quiet retirement in Tokyo and reading about Guangdong's abolishment, Suzuki mockingly laughs at those who betrayed him, now dead,imprisoned, or humiliated, while his mailbox is full of letters requesting an interview.
• Killer Finale: The end of the IJA coup sees both friends-turned-enemies, Morita and Ibuka, sentenced to death by hanging, where they share a cell until that day comes.
• Marked Bullet: While eagerly awaiting an order to let the IJA intervene in the riots, a one-eyed soldier goes in the dead of night to write the names of places where the PTRG was sent, the corporations who sent them there, and the name of the Chief Executive. These names are marked on the supposedly functional experimental bullets present.
• Mirthless Laughter:
  • Preparing to throw a bomb at several IJA soldiers and sacrifice a woman's life, Chun laughs without humor at the situation, realizing how Guangdong has turned everyone, including himself, into a monster willing to sacrifice innocent lives for their goals.
  • If Komai was the Chief Executive, Chun finds him cowering in the corner of his panic room and he sullenly laughs in reaction.
    Nothing lasts forever, Chief Executive. Especially in this city.
• Mood Whiplash: While participating in a riot, one demonstrator thinks about the stars and constellations in the skies in a calm, reminiscent manner. Then, she notices a large gathering of lights in the horizon and, to everyone's horror, they realize that they are IJA ships and men with automatic weapons land to shoot everyone in sight.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: Chun kills a second guard in the Hitachi scenario by grabbing a pistol on the floor and shooting him multiple times before finishing him off with a knife.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: While Yoshiko gives a somber goodbye to her editor and colleagues, Yoshiko notes that she never got say farewell to Lam.
• Oh, Crap!: Feeling secure in his panic room during the IJA coup, Komai's smugness is wiped clean off when the power is cut and he can't close the door. As he desperately tries to tug at it, he barks at one of his guards to help him and feels utter terror as he hears gunshots and footsteps approaching.
• Ominous Knocking: Leong, Mei, and Wai huddle together away from their residence's door, as an IJA soldier knocks on their door, signaling their impending doom, regardless of whoever the Chief Executive was.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: While the IJA consider the Guangdong corporations to be corrupt failures, they do recognize their technological achievements as more advanced than anything seen in Japan proper. Once the IJA takes over, they send shipments of the technology back to their superiors in Japan to analyze and put to new use.
• The Paranoiac: The IJA officers and soldiers see enemies everywhere in Guangdong: the Big Five, the Legislative Council, the rioters, the Guangdong Police Force, the Kenpeitai, the Yakuza, the Triads, and so on. This suspiciousness drives the IJA to hold the Kōshu Tribunal, where the most influential politicians and figures in Guangdong will be tried for their "treason" and almost invariably found guilty.
• Plunder: Even though the IJA find scorched villages burned by the Guangdong People's Anti-Japanese Guerrilla, they attempt to plunder them. for any valuables. They're largely disappointed to find little, bar a Sony radio, because everything else has been taken by the rebels.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Several IJA soldiers discriminate and mock an injured GFT rioter who starts speaking Cantonese instead of Japanese. They claim that he's not speaking a "real language" and calls all Zhujin "dumb animals" who can only parrot Japanese words.
• Precision F-Strike: If the IJA bring Morita to trial after putting down the riots, his statement before the verdict is given is a single "Go fuck yourself," before unleashing a blistering speech condemning them for their actions.
• Propaganda Machine: The IJA suspend all mass media communications, replacing them with repeating messages and direct orders to the population every five minutes, first in Japanese, then in Cantonese.
• Psychotic Smirk: When Nagano gives approval to employ as much force as possible, Watanabe grins with sadistic glee.
• The Purge: Nagano starts as he intends to go on, personally abolishing the Legislative Council, executing all the corporate chiefs, stripping anything deemed subversive to pan-Asianism, and turning Guangdong into a glorified IJA base to prepare for the coming Great Asian War. His "End Corruption" focus art is literally a severed head.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Implied In Hitachi's route, where it is mentioned that women suffered "indignities" at the hands of the IJA, adding to the horror of the situation.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Locked in a cell with Ibuka, Morita chews him out for inviting Hitachi to Guangdong and starting a chain of events culminating in the Guangdong riots and the IJA coup. He rejects any possibility of him apologizing for his fatal error, stating that he was too late twenty years ago or, in Hitachi's route, that Hell is waiting for him in death.
• Red Is Violent: In Hitachi's path, Chun's final showdown at the Legislative Complex takes place in the underground maintenance tunnels, which are doused in red emergency lighting to accentuate the battle's carnage.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: A Zhujin tries to get out of prison and secure a job for himself for the foundation of the Makao Municipal Government, believing the best way to do so is to inform on the crimes of his fellow prisoners to the IJA colonel acting as warden, only to instead be sent back to his cell where he will likely be killed by the same prisoners he informed on while the colonel looks on unsympathetically.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • If the IJA depose Hitachi, the airport will be packed with people trying to flee the country, with many panicking when flights to China are canceled and flights to Manchuria are delayed. Likewise, no one will represent Komai posthumously in the trails because most of Hitachi's remnants have fled back to Manchuria.
• Silence of Sadness: Morita and Ibuka spend most of their time as cellmates in complete silence, due to their history and the circumstances of where they are.
• Sociopathic Soldier:
  • The IJA is so angry that they view the entire population as collectively guilty, who can only be redeemed through either death or blind obedience. They also casually laugh about the deaths and think nothing of shooting or bayoneting civilians. It's the job they were meant to do, after all.
  • Before the riots, there are already signs of the troops getting restless and wanting to unleash their wrath on the citizens. One soldier, waiting in his barracks and inspecting his rifle, is frustrated about not receiving an order to dispense a "punishment" to the rioters while eagerly thinking about the bullets he could fire and the skulls he could trample. Further, the final IJA report mentions that its soldiers are declining in morale and discipline, with the author suggesting that they will intervene themselves, if an order is not given.
• Spiteful Spit: In retribution for killing Komai, the IJA target Chun's family and Hei attacks them so the others can flee. Despite lacking combat prowess, Hei doesn't show any fear towards them and spits in one of their faces.
• Stairwell Chase: After headbutting an IJA soldier, a worker makes an escape up a metal staircase as the factory fills with smoke, flames, gunshots, and screams. At the end of the chase, he gets stuck in an upper-level maintenance room and botches his escape when he jumps out the window, realizing too late that the suicide nets intended to save him have burned up.
• This Cannot Be!: If Fujitsu is deposed, a man whose succeeded in Ibuka's silicon dream will be mortified that all of his work will be worth nothing under the IJA regime, unable to believe that this is now his fate.
• This Is Unforgivable!:
  • In the final internal report within the 23rd army, the IJA denounce the Chief Executive and the state of Guangdong as a lost cause for failing to stop the Riots. The author can barely hide their contempt, stating that they would need unprofessional language to adequately describe the situation. The report also mentions that domestic opinion in Japan has radicalized in response to the violence, with the report claiming that they’ve receive letters demanding intervention, along with many members of the political and military spheres demanding the same. The report itself labels the security situation as "unforgivable".
  • Gao Zongwu from the Republic of China is horrified by the IJA's actions in Guangdong and condemns Japan's willingness to let their crimes slide. He then makes an ominous promise that the Republic of China will prepare a response to this injustice against their citizens and heightens the possibility of war with Japan.
• Title Drop:
  • Two drops appear in the assorted law titled "The End of the Silicon Dreams", recalling the name of the update in which Guangdong was added, "Silicon Dreams". Further, its description states "their Midas hands cracked before our Hearts of Iron."
  • The final focus of the IJA failstate is titled "Wake Up From the Silicon Dream", calling back to the game update's title as the fantasy of a fictional state serving consumer electronic companies is destroyed, marking the End of an Age.
• Urban Ruins: If Sony suffers the IJA coup, a man runs through a street, where he sees a destroyed slum with huddled children, twisted Cheung Kong banners, and a scratchy radio playing a whisper of music before breaking down into static.
• Vast Bureaucracy: After the IJA coup, Guangdong’s administration is reduced to a skeleton staff working at gunpoint. Security checks for those partaking is exceptionally high, which Takashima regards as pointless as his papers are getting checked.
• Would Hurt a Child: The very first event during the IJA's intervention takes the perspective of an eleven year old girl, whose stargazing is interrupted when IJA ships open fire on her and the surrounding crowd. When a spotlight notices that she survives, the girl is killed offscreen and has her corpse sunk in the ocean.
• You Have Failed Me: The Japanese Prime Minister is initially okay with letting the Chief Executive put down the Guangdong Riots, but taking too long will wear on his patience. If the intervention bar reaches 100% before the Riots are dealt with, the Prime Minister declares Guangdong a lost cause and give permission for Nagano to intervene, with lethal results for everyone.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After the Legislative Council is dissolved, one of its members rats out his fellow cellmates and serves the reigning IJA under the assumption that they'll free him. However, the IJA find his background too suspicious to integrate him in the Makao Municipal Government and send him back to his cell with the same people he betrayed, now that he's no longer useful to them.
• You Lose at Zero Trust: If the Japanese intervention risk reaches 100%, the Prime Minister loses all faith that the Chief Executive can stabilize the situation and gives Nagano permission to carry out a coup.
  Nagano: (picks up telephone) Yes?
  Prime Minister: This is the Prime Minister speaking. Is this Lieutenant General Nagano?
  Nagano: It is, sir.
  Prime Minister: Clearance granted. Do what you must.
  Nagano: Yes, sir.
• You Will Be Spared: Subverted. After Chun assassinates Komai, the IJA assault a rebel group held inside the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and demand their surrender on the promise of equitable treatment. However, everyone knows that they'd never honor that promise.

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