Asia-Pacific Revolutionary Compact

**Dev. Status** | Conceptual

*"This colourful world looks so clear when I'm in my Fog,*

*Their Black and White hearts:*

*Minding my own business now has meaning*

*What to pull closer and what should be abandoned."*

- *"Wu Li" Popular Song in the APRC*
An important sub-bloc in the Soviet Sphere of Influence consisting of North Korea, the contiguous remnants of the CCP and PLA and Mongolia still functioning at above a Bandit level, and a number of Island Nations both large and small in the Pacific that were brought into existence by temporal anomalies created by repeated acts of time travel. While they were hit hard by the Empire's invasion in World War Three, they managed to liberate themselves and aid the Soviets in driving the Japanese from their shores and even expanded their influence somewhat into former Imperial and Allied territory, functioning as the greatest Naval Power of the Communist bloc and the guardian of the red pacific,

Lead by the Socialist Council Republic of Xiandao (SCRX), a large island nation settled primarily by ethnically Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese people in waves starting with the first Chinese Warring states period, intensifying with the Three Kingdoms era of China and Korea, and then with further refugees from the fall of the Song, Yuan, and Ming as well as the Sengoku Jidai, located in the northern pacific, the APRC is the component of the World Socialist Alliance on the most even footing with mother Russia and its Warsaw Pact in terms of sheer power and might Xiandao (sometimes referred to as Penglai after its famous mountain, a sacred place in East Asian spirituality that was mythical in prior timelines but made real by chrono-anomalies) is a rising power, especially after its forces were crucial in driving the Empire from the Russian hinterland and in the incursions into North Japan after being the first to push the Empire out of its territory. It is however, a power that is heavily independent from Russia and is quick to remind the motherland that while they are comrades, the Russians are still informed by the European worldview.

Famous for being an immovable object and an irresistible force on the field of battle, the Asia-Pacific Revolutionary Compact is on the frontlines against the Atomic Chinese and warily watches the Empire for any signs of a return to form, regarding the Japanese and the Atomic Chinese to essentially be fallen fathers who have lost their way and must be brought back to the light of Asia's future by hook or crook. A future they believe is informed by a combination of the ideals of the Creation Society, Yamakawa Kikue's Marxist feminism, and Pak Hon-Yong's Councilist Leninism with more than a dash of perhaps ironically, Russian cosmism and Bogdanov's Vperedism as well as what they call "Far-sightedism" , more commonly translated as Ultravisionaryism. Futurists of a marxist bent as opposed to the Syndicate's objectivist strain, the Combine's heterodoxical technocratic "forwards before leftwards but never rightwards", or the Concordiat's fascistic ideal, the APRC believes in technology and the need to transform humanity itself.

The human body is not a temple to be worshipped, but an engine to be improved upon to better it so that man can be free of not just the oppression of capital, but the oppression of even death itself. While many scoff at their seemingly insane project of the "human resurrection device program" that they dream will not only come with immortality for all, but the ability to return all those who have ever died back to life, they do take it absolutely seriously as the ultimate goal of communism. An attitude they cling to even as their more grounded allies such as the Soviets, the Near-Eastern Socialists, the Africans, and the Forum often poke fun at it as pie in the sky idealism born of being one of the least war ravaged members of the second world bloc.

while looking at the potential collapse of the Allied Pacific with the descent of America and Indonesia into civil war and the growing secessionist movement in Oceania with guarded optimism. Though there are also reports that the APRC considers Russia to be too European and too Traditionalist to truly lead the revolution, and regards Russia's efforts to focus on peace to be fundamentally born of fear rather than a proper read of the situation. While there's a general agreement that the world probably needs at least a generation to recover from two back to back world wars, the APRC is far more suspicious of London and Paris' overtures at cooperation with Moscow and Xianjing (Xiandao's capital) than the Soviet Union is.

With Uranium fission being considered a dead-end, the Asia-Pacific Revolutionary Compact instead unlocked the power of the element Thorium, which while unable to form the sorts of bombs hoped for, represented a tremendous leap forward in power generation and unlocked a wide array of possibilities and potential technologies, including preliminary research in actual nuclear weaponisation. Coupled with their own explorations into robotics, biology, the strong and weak nuclear forces, quantum tunneling, cybernetics and computer science, they are one of the main technological powerhouses of the Communist Bloc which is manifested into a potent arsenal that once allowed to start rolling; rarely stops for much of anything. If not stopped from achieving the final form of its boom economy and military production machine, they will simply roll over and squash most opposition as they build more and more steam. And while slow, they are masters of paralyser and EMP technology to ensure that the foe is going to be moving at the pace they set.

## At a Glance

 **Motives** | Global Communist Revolution, Advancement of Technology and Prosperity, Reunification of Sundered Asian nations,

## Background

*"Why is it called the Asian Revolutionary Compact when most of it isn't even on the Asian Landmass?"*

- *Frequently asked question*
*"Why is Europe considered a continent when it is part of the Asian landmass?"*

- *Common Response*
The Asia-Pacific Revolutionary Compact consists of the still governed remnants of Red China (as opposed to the bandits who have abandoned the Maoist cause), North Vietnam, North Korea, remaining loyalists in Mongolia; all countries familiar to most timeline hoppers. It is also home to countries that would not be familiar to most time travellers travellers, Trinsuyin, Anchu, Gojinguk, Tianchao, Asahikyo, Lac Annam to name a few that form the so called "Dragon Rim" of archipelago, minor continent, and island countries stretching from the arctic ocean all the way down to the Central Pacific, with Xiandao being the largest and most powerful of these. The Dragon Rim forms the bulk of the APRC's population, economy, and territory, and throughout the late 1910s, 20s, 30s, and 40s would see one socialist revolution after the other in countries both agrarian and rural as well as urban and industrial, greatly bolstering the Communist bloc with countries that traded with the Soviet Union, exchanged the capital needed for its great industrialisation, and helped to secure its pacific presence.

But these countries did have a history before the 20th century, empty islands settled by primarily Asian migrants exploring the vastness of the ocean in the classical, medieval, and early modern era to find new lands, often fleeing from many tragedies in Asia's history such as the Warring States, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Korea and China, the ebb and flow of steppe horde invasions and dynasties, the collapses of empires such as the Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing, the Sengoku Jidai, and more.

Some of the last places on Earth to be settled by humans due to their remoteness, they would also come to include many Polynesian people who also migrated to these lands and integrated with the populace and found some of their own societies towards the southern end of the Dragon Rim. Volcanically active due to being near geothermal hotspots that well up from the Earth's mantle to produce the lands they live on, like Iceland on a larger scale, the Dragon Rim runs the gamut of climates from frozen tundra to temperate plains and forest to tropical paradise and desert to wet and rainy all the way back to frozen tundra again as the various archipelagos stretch from the subarctic to near antarctica. And the wealth of material brought up from the Earth's interior made them minerally rich. Many of the older islands that had been extant since the carboniferous were deep within the carboniferous tree belts, allowing for a vast quantity of bituminous and anthracite coal to be harvested to coke the plentiful iron into high grade steel that would form the basis of industry across the dragon rim, providing steel exports to the mainland of Asia in exchange for silks, teas, and other fine goods.

Thorium and other fissile materials were also brought up from deep within the Earth in large amounts, though in the early days these materials were simply regarded as cursed ores that eventually made people who stayed near them for too long sick, their true value yet to be discovered for centuries. But the trade in exotic fruits and materials for the finished goods of the mainnland of Asia would form the basis of prosperity as well as the basis of culture as indigenous American (primarily relatives of the Easter Islanders and the Pacific Northwesterners), Polynesian, East, Austro-Aboriginal, and Southeast Asian people mingled in the mostly East Asian populated region. Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism would mingle with more bespoke local spiritualities that often preserved more archaic forms of the practices of the peoples who migrated to the eastern "wall of the world". While many practice beliefs characterised as Shinto for example, it tends to carry many older beliefs common in the Sengoku Jidai or the Meiji era.

The basis of the iron and steel trade established in this past era made the bones of industrialisation in the region as the world changed and European dominance stretched across the planet. Xiandao was the greatest of the powers of the region, and with a panicked reaction to the Opium war, sought to speedrun its industrialisation, provoking an arms race in the region that kept it divided during the Victorian Era. Ties to one or more of the European great powers and regional competition as well as deliberate efforts to keep the area from competing with Europe on the global stage saw the area become pieces in the games of the great powers, but never fully able to be subsumed by them. The rise of Japan however, disrupted this balance as the new Empire sought its own colonies, expanding eastwards, southwards, and northwards, the presence of the islands brought into being by the butterfly efect drawing the new Empire's focus away from the mainland of Asia.

The rising industrialisation had also brought about an increasingly radical worker's movement as efforts to try and keep these places open for business came at the expense of dreadful working conditions, repressions against organised labour, and the constant struggle for better pay and a more dignified life for the working masses and the peasants moving into the cities as the growing mechanisation of agriculture reduced the need for farmhands. In efforts to turn profits in tightly competitive markets, costs were lowered by cutting on the expense of labour to try and get cheaper goods on shelves in foreign markets while spheres of influence and internal peripheries were squeezed for more output. Empires would rise to find captive markets and cheap resources, and sometimes these movements would even make gains, even if bitterly won.

Japan and Xiandao found themselves in bitter competition with one another, carving out their own spheres of influence as the two came to be regarded as true great powers to the point of even having some states that could be called great powers in their own right as within their diplomatic spheres. Japan aligned closely with Britain and eventually France, while Xiandao aligned towards Imperial Russia and eventually Germany, with their spherelings and allies following suit. When the great war broke out, at first Japan and Xiandao and their allies remained on the sidelines, as the conflict seemed to be one of many skirmishes in Europe, but when it was clear that the war was not ending anytime soon by 1915, the web of alliances brought conflict to the waters of the pacific just as it had to the fields of Europe.

A naval war of attrition with bloody island campaigns and protracted meatgrinders on fronts that had both Entente and Central Powers aligned states would define the first world war's far easter theatre, though Japan made sure to lean more on its proxies to provide the manpower rather than bleed its own generations dry on beaches and in trenches. The declaration of the October Revolution in Russia however, would swerve the war in very different directions. The first revolutions would occur in the frontline countries such as Minkai, Trinsuyin, Hwanggot, as the workers, soldiers, and farmers and their parties had enough of fighting for lines on a map while their rations were repeatedly cut despite the owner classes being exempt from both the draft and the rationing system.

Xiandao would keep on the fight for some time, but with Germany's surrender in 1918, it was clearly over, and the government's attempts to restart the war after a period of ceasefire to fight to a local victory lead to its own May Revolution. The Communists, who had preformed surprisingly well in the ceasefire elections, promised peace, land reform, and the freedom of labour in coalition with the Syndicalists and the radical Social Democrats. A revolutionary bloc was born in the far east, with the exhausted Entente satisfied to at last have a government willing to formally end the great war even as a red scare mingled with the old spectre of the yellow peril.

### A Dragon's Dance

The eastern revolutions, unlike those in the west, largely succeeded where they started, with further revolutionary waves happening in the intervening decades. Xiandao was an industrialised power unlike Russia or Iran, and contributed heavily to the build ups and modernisations of their partners in the west. Chairwoman Zhao Xingli welcomed many such as Bogdanov to her shores, offering them a chance to explore a nation that had once technically been Russia's enemy in the great war turned its greatest partner. There were many exchanges of ideas, including some more oddball ones that fuelled disagreements between Zhao and Lenin who thought that Zhao's fascinantion with more esoteric goals was missing the forest for the trees, but Xingli was on more than good enough terms to be given a place of honour to speak during Lenin's funeral.

Though Xingli, often described as the mother of the revolution, would eventually step down, her legacy left its mark on the revolutionary project as the direction of the revolutionary states was pingponged between Yamakawa Kikue; a leftist exile from Japan who had settled in Minkai, Pak Toh-Yong fresh from the revolution in Gojinguk, and Sun Rong in Xiandao. The so called "troika" was often bitterly argumentative over issues such as feminism (particularly over Kikue's proposed mandate that half the Council of People's Commissars and the Supreme Worker's Council for each of the eastern comintern members having to be women), futurism, and whether revolutionary energies needed to be focused on the Dragon Rim or Eurasia. And as such Stalin, who was always good at listening to an argument and then finding a middle ground to make himself seem reasonable, managed to leverage their support for his programs and consolidation of power within the Soviet Union around the Politburo and his own office of General Secretary.

The MCV revolution would further elevate Russia's own standing within the communist bloc, secretly aided by Cherdenko's time travelling refugees to greatly populate the Soviet Union and its precious allies on Eurasia, and Stalin would assert the Soviet Union as the leader of the global revolutionary movement as its industrial output grew into the world's largest. Growing frustrated with the fact that there were more revolutions so far away from the Soviet Union's borders while potential threats continued to accumulate around it, Stalin proved susceptible to mysterious bald advisors who encouraged him to rethink his stance on Soviet isolationism and give the Tukhachevsky doctrine another look.

Following the Circum-Pacific War against Kolchak and his allies in the forties and the Polish-German war that saw Poland occupied by Germany and made into a German puppet state, Stalin was convinced that another great war was on the horizon and made this clear to his allies. So convinced of this was he, that he would respond to Schleicher's attempted invasion of the Soviet Union with all out war and counter-invasion. A war that would escalate far beyond any reasonable expectations once France, Britain, America, and Japan decided to intervene on Germany's behalf when it seemed clear that the Reich and its "Pact of Steel" was going to lose and lose badly.

The second world war met the current premier of Xiandao; Chen Shenhe; with surprise as she convened the Asia-Pacific Revolutionary Compact to support her ally. She was ultimately however, supportive, believing that sometimes the hand of history must be forced, and that the time for peace with the reactionaries had passed. Together with Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung, Yong Eun-Ae, Yamamoto Yuki, and others, she declared the formation of the APRC to advance and safeguard the revolution in the far east, and expanded what had been mostly a European war into a global war. A war that would be fought to a bitterly contested stalemate after six years that showed that nobody was actually prepared for the realities of MCV warfare and mobile production lines.

Losses were too easy to replace, lines were too easy to fortify, supply lines could move with armies greatly simplifying baggage trains, static fortifications could in a sense "move" as construction yards crept bases closer and closer to the front lines and armies could be massively motorised to degrees once thought impossible. Even warships, once only used sparingly due to the expense of time and resources to replace them, were now far more expendable than most had thought ships could ever be, and the skittishness around actually risking them in battle had ensured that the pacific naval war was surprisingly dull, with navies growing faster than they could be sunk because admirals still fought under old assumptions and old ways that regarded warships as irreplaceable assets and thus only rarely engaged in pitched battle.

The conflict ended in general disappointment for all sides, not very much at all was accomplished and the skittishness of the warfare between the two sides had lead to the conflict having, in contrast to the great war, significantly lower casualties at roughly half the first world war's total, with military loss of life making up more than half the total. While many remember it for the epic clash of tanks and war machines, these major operations were mostly few and far between with long periods of standing around and waiting for commanders to deem the army ready to actually fight. And with Stalin's demise, there was a question of why exactly it was even being fought when it was clear that nobody was any closer to winning than they had been at the start.

### A Fire in the East

...

While Russia largely regarded the Japanese as a non-issue, believing that the Empire would be far too busy dealing with resistance against its Japanisation efforts in its colonies and was overall a mediocre military power more concerned with showboating than actual practical capabilities, Xiandao and its close compatriots always remembered Japan as an enemy in both world wars. They had never ceased the lookouts for the Shinobi and the Imperial Japanese naval intelligence agency, and while the secretive Empire was something of a black box for their own spies, they had gained some information through their computer cracking efforts. Cherdenko however, ignored the warnings given to him by his APRC counterparts, including Chairwoman Satou Akane and Premier Zhu Ming, believing that the Empire and its "little axis" were merely bluffing because of the patent absurdity of a plan to try and conquer the entire planet in a single year.

In hindsight, much suffering could have been avoided if these warnings were taken seriously, but the insistence of some powers such as the Greater Indian Commonwealth and the APRC to prepare just in case for a war with Japan and its allies did much to ensure that the wild optimism of Nobusuke Kishi's promised conquest of the world within a single year was just that, wild optimism. Had places like the Dragon Rim and Indian subcontinent folded, the Axis may very well have had the forces freed up to conquer America and northern Eurasia and essentially condemn the world to the Imperial yoke. Ironically, the stubborn resistance of the APRC probably directly benefitted America the most, preventing the Axis from fully committing to its invasion of the USA from multiple directions and forcing them to downscale their planned invasion of Canada. Much like how India's refusal to surrender to the Empire ultimately prevented the Empire's planned southern thrust invasion meant to split Eurasia in half and choke the Suez and the world's oil supplies and allow for new fronts to be opened in its invasion of Europe; and thus ironically benefitted the Soviets.

The battle of Chicago that ultimately prevented the fall of America outright to the Psychic amplifier project for example, had a number of Axis field armies that were originally intended for the American theatre that had to be pulled back in an attempt to salvage deteriorating situations in the Dragon Rim, much like how the Empire had to call off its planned deployment of a second Shogun Executioner to ambush and destroy Moscow to instead deploy the monstrosity in Mumbai as the city's batteries were threatening to cripple a black tortoise fortress. The forces that were in place to invade America themselves were well positioned for island hopping campaigns and intense naval warfare with the Empire, this time deciding to go for the jugular and bleed the Japanese's best in the three way war for the pacific. Already being battle ready, they were not caught off guard the way the American fleet at San Francisco and Seattle were, and forced the Empire into the sort of meatgrinder that Tatsu was hoping to avoid.

The APRC was hit by the Imperial invasions hard, but hit back harder. The widespread usage of EMP and Paralyzer systems as well as brutal electronic jamming left Imperial armies largely blind and immobile, while the abundance of units that could both engage air and land targets negated much of the advantage of transforming mecha. The heavy usage of hover units was also exploited, particularly at sea where EMP blasts would essentially be a death sentence for hovering units, causing them to sink instantly, as was the fate of the entire 33rd Tengu Wing trying to evade the attentions of the air defence network only to be spotted by patrol craft and targeted by a paralyzer station. T

## Gameplay

### Yin and Yang

As a harmony between the workers and farmers. The APRC is roughly split between Yin (range) and Yang (melee) units who gains bonuses when near their opposite alignment (there’s also the untype which are mainly non-combat units). Yang units gain increased armour, health, and (very slow) health regeneration when near Yin units, while Yin units gains increased range, damage, and rate of fire when near Yang units. Encouraging tight formations, and their “moving wall” tactic, to maximise their potential. But when outside of formation their unit tends to be weaker, and being bunched up makes them vulnerable to aoe weapons.

### Build Mechanic

The APRC differs from all others in the fact that all production buildings are already built when a game starts. Construction Crane, Hacker, and Woldo Scout Craft are produced from the Construction Bunker. The units in the other buildings must be unlocked by purchasing upgrades. They are significantly tougher compared to other factions, with three times the health and twice the armor, and are protected by Tier IV defenses but they can't build more, and can only repair the ones they have if destroyed. And if the Command Battle Station itself is destroyed, the APRC will cut their losses and retreat.

### All Aboard

Unlike the other factions, the APRC doesn't train their units individually from their buildings. Instead all forces, whether infantry, vehicle, or aircraft, are loaded into packages (the number of units in each package insreasingwith upgrades) beforehand, how many units per package is dependent on the train capacity, which can be upgraded, and how much space the unit takes, before the commander orders them to the frontline, where after some time all of the units inside the package will arrive to the station and disembark, ready for battle. Said train can also be used to transport their forces to the frontline, but only if there are train tracks to get there.

## Asia-Pacific Revolutionary Liberation Military

*"The wheel of history moves for no one person and rarely all that quickly, but when the masses work together no force can stand in its way."*

- *Marshal Ta Hun kwai (former PLA general)*
### Structures

*"Building the Peoples' Revolution."*

- *Anonymous Crane driver.*

### Railway Vehicles

In order to keep the momentum the APRC uses train carts. Superheavy train cars that can either hold enormous amounts of units within them, repair all of the APRC forces on the frontlines, or contains enough weaponry to be a mobile fortress to hold the line. And when the army marches the Railway simply follows. Though they are restricted by needing to build train tracks.

## Trivia

The APRC is based on left-wing Asian futurism, Sun Yat Sen's original leftist Pan-Asianism, and post-cold war cyberpunk that has largely replaced Japan with China as the perceived rising power. Its aesthetic is inspired by Rise of the East's Asia Pacific Alliance and also by media such as Crysis, Chinese Donghua, and Korean Manhwa, and is meant to give a sense of uncanny disconnect much like how the Empire is very blatantly not rooted in 60s aesthetics. Ironically, gameplay-wise they're probably closer to ROTR Russia than ROTR China due to not being a horde faction thanks to being intended as a sort of mirror for India.

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