North Korea

## Maps

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* North Korea on world map

**North Korea**, officially the **Democratic People's Republic of Korea**, abbreviated **DPRK**, is a country in East AsiaW. The country occupies the northern half of the Korean peninsulaW.

## History

The united Korean state was occupied by the Japanese EmpireW in 1905. After the defeat of Japan at the end of the Second World War, Korea was divided into two states in 1945 under military occupation. The North Korea was under Soviet occupation and the South Korea under United States occupation. This division led to the establishment of the **Democratic People's Republic of Korea** in the north and the **Republic of Korea** in the south.

In 1950, North Korean armed forces crossed into South KoreaW with the aim to re-unite the Korean peninsula by force. This marked the start of the Korean WarW. During the conflict, North Korea had military support from ChinaW and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United NationsW and the United States. Edward Baldwin served as a fighter pilot during the war.

## Culture

Ever since the Korean War, North Korea has gained a reputation as a highly oppressive "hermit kingdom", under the control of Kim Il-SungW and various leaders within the ruling Workers' Party of KoreaW and Korean People's ArmyW. Despite being nominally part of the communist bloc led by the Soviet Union, it did not liberalize its economy or society like the former in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and continued to be dictated by the ideology of JucheW, which was regarded as a deviation by some from the traditional ideals of Marxism-Leninism (some have compared it to ethnic nationalism and fascism). However, in what was seen as an attempt at shoring up some level of international legitimacy, North Korea abandoned its controversial ballistic missile program in 1988 in order to focus on its nascent space program during the Space Boom.

## North Korea in space

*Main article: North Korea space program*
During the Space Boom in the late 80s and 90s, North Korea started its own space program out of their prior intercontinental ballistic missile program. Although, the program struggled to keep pace with other nations. In 1992, debris of a failed North Korean rocket hit the orbital hotel Polaris. Nevertheless, in September 1994, before their competitors started their crewed missions, North Korea announced the launch of an unmanned probe to Mars.

However, the probe secretly contained two North Korean ujunauts, making it a manned mission. The Soyuz-type spacecraft crash-landed on Mars, killing Park Chol and damaging the communications array. Because of this, the North Korean government did not disclose the existence of the mission. In spite of this setback, North Korean cosmonaut Lieutenant Colonel Lee Jung-Gil became the first true man on Mars. He was discovered by Danielle Poole and Grigory Kuznetsov when they required a part of the probe to repair their MSAM. Lee threatened them with a weapon upon approach. However, they were able to overpower him and take him back to the American-Soviet Happy Valley base.

The North Korean capsule was later used to exile Danny Stevens, who had been charged with the manslaughter of multiple Helios and Soviet crew members due to negligence during their water drilling mission, causing a disastrous landslide.

In 1997, North Korea became a founding member of the Mars-7 Alliance (M-7), making the country a major player in the global space race.

## Gallery

Military parade in North KoreaNorth Korean military missileNorth Korean military missileNorth Korea Missile Programme in the 80sDebris of a failed North Korean rocket in Earth's orbitLee Jung-Gil trying to fix the damaged comms of his capsuleDPRK PatchLee Jung-Gil, North Korean hero
## Behind the scenes

* Though little is known about the state of North Korea's internal society and economy, it can be best implied that much like the real world, it has remained archaically industrialized, militarized, and impoverished, relative to its Asian neighbors and the wider communist world.
* Images of North Korea shown on news broadcasts that are implied to have taken place in the late 1980s in the *For All Mankind* timeline actually come from the 2010s of our reality, such as the North Korean military parade showing footage of Pyongyang in 2018, during North Korea's 70th founding anniversary.
* The North Korean rocket and the launch site (seen in the episodes 3x01, 3x04 and in the Apple TV+ bonus video) is the North Korean Unha-3 carrier rocketW at its launch pad at the Sohae Satellite Launching StationW in Tongch'ang-ri in 2012.

## See also

* North Korea space program
* North Korean capsule
* Soviet Union
* United States

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bonus Video: Another Giant Leap: 1984-1992 - North Korean Launch (1990)
2. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3, Episode 1: "Polaris"
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3, Episode 10: "Stranger in a Strange Land"
4. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3, Episode 4: "Happy Valley" (17:55)
5. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3, Episode 9: "Coming Home"
6. ↑ Bonus Video: Leap Into a New Millenium: 1996-2001 - The Mars-7 Alliance (1997)