Super Dragoon Fighter Wiki

Sirimese Federation

---

The Sirimese Federation is a constituent federation of the Asterian Union State, located in the east of Asteria. Sirim is bordered to the west and north by the Union State federations of Serica and Kashlik respectively, and by the State of Tenzan to the east. Its capital and largest city is Ilgun, although owing to Sirim's dense urbanization, it boasts many other major cities such as Namhang, Seunggyeong and Geumseong. Administratively, it is composed of 16 provinces, three special economic zones (Bungnim, Namhang, Seunggyeong) and two autonomous republics (Euphun, Puktong). Perhaps owing to Sirim's extensive cultural and political ties with Serica, or merely significant Serican investment, Sirim's federal government is akin to Serica in terms of its openness to reformist ideas and willingness to cautiously pursue liberalization in some sectors. Sirimese reformists of recent years even felt empowered enough to create the Bungnim special economic zone out of an entire province in 0116 R.C., unrivaled in size among all of the Union State's special economic zones, which became the subject of much debate in the Presidium's Economic Planning Committee.

However, despite Sirim possessing a significant industrial base of its own, Serican and eastern Kashlik industrial enterprises exert undue influence in the Sirimese economy and overall society. As well, the autonomous republic of Puktong - formed ostensibly to accommodate the small Aisin-descended Pukchin minority - has seen the development of a Zalesian and Stepetsian population that formed after Sirim's induction to the Union State and is growing in size. Owing to these factors and more, a growing undercurrent of resentment at what many Sirimese perceive as foreign domination has formed, although the totalitarian governance of the governments in Ilgun and Altunkent keep such sentiments heavily repressed.

History
The onset of the Twilight War (964-971 S.C.) sent the Republic of Sirim into a prolonged state of economic and political turmoil. Though not a belligerent in the war, Sirim’s economy was greatly dependent on the fortunes of neighboring Tenzan and Serica, the latter of which had joined the Allied Powers, and unhindered global free trade more broadly. The conflict’s outbreak and the intensity of the fighting across Eurysia and Asteria brought an end to over two decades of growing prosperity Sirim had enjoyed under the continual rule of the pro-business United Sirim party. Sirim’s conglomerates, which had become nearly all-powerful nationally, were not able to withstand the tribulations of a long global economic crisis and eventually all collapsed immediately after the Great Exchange, despite massive government intervention in a futile attempt to save the country’s flagship corporations.

As Sirim entered the depths of a profound economic depression, Prime Minister Hwang Kang-hwan came under pressure from a popular protest movement urging him to resign and declare early elections. Hwang was obstinate, first attempting to ignore the protests but then publicly rejecting their demands and adopting an aggressive strategy of repression against the protestors. When two protestors were killed by police in a particularly egregious misuse of force, the Sirimese public was outraged, and protests became more violent. Fearing the potential consequences of political violence becoming more widespread, and with the now-defunct conglomerates gone, United Sirim’s elected officials turned against Hwang and removed him in a no-confidence vote. He was replaced by the young reformist politician Choi Kum-sung, given a mandate by the party’s elders to do whatever it took to maintain the party’s rule. He undertook some economic and social reforms, which were credited with enabling United Sirim to maintain a razor-thin majority in Sirim’s parliament in the 977 S.C. elections. Choi continued on as prime minister for another five years before being replaced by Sunwoo Young-chul after elections in 0003 R.C.

Beginning in the middle of Choe’s tenure, Sirim had begun to align more closely with Tenzan and the nascent Coalition, in light of Serica’s weakened position. Sunwoo continued this realignment, while also maintaining a centrist posture as Sirim began to exit out of the post-Twilight War economic crisis. Meanwhile, Serica and Zalesia were undergoing a detente at Zalesian leader Mikhail Voronin’s initiative as both nations slowly started recovering from the Great Exchange. Fears and doubts regarding the path of Sirim’s foreign policy began to appear domestically, but its government remained committed to the course it had taken. Such fears weighed on the Sirimese electorate during elections in 0007 R.C., and United Sirim was forced for the first time in decades to enter a coalition with the conservative and militaristic National Vision Party (NVP), under Prime Minister Song Dong-suk.

Partly owing to pressure exerted by the NVP, but more so by the continued warming of relations between Serica and Zalesia, Sirim’s focus shifted away from supporting the economy at large to beginning an expansive military rearmament program with Coalition support. The urgency of the program was underscored by the Ningyang Incident in 0009 R.C., which did not impact Sirim directly but resulted in a cooling in relations between Sirim and its two land neighbors as they grew more concerned with Sirim’s pro-Coalition alignment.

In 0013 R.C., a few months prior to elections, the nation was shook by the revelation of the Coriolis scandal, wherein several leading politicians in United Sirim were shown to be accepting bribes from the Esmarian corporation Coriolis International to favor it over other Esmarian and Tenzanese defense contractors. Whereas United Sirim was perceived to be tardy and half-hearted in punishing its involved members, the NVP initially seemed barely involved, which resulted in the party being empowered to rule alone after elections that year. After the Asterian Union State was formed the next year, new Prime Minister Han Young-sung chose to open negotiations with the Coalition about the possibility of joining the Coalition without disbanding its military, which were quietly strung out by the Coalition.

Nonetheless, a couple months afterwards, further evidence would be leaked to Sirimese journalists that blew open the Coriolis II scandal. Han was revealed to have been engaged in the same illicit relationship with Coriolis International that had precipitated his own rise to power, as well as having accepted bribes from various Sirimese companies. The Sirimese public, outraged that the trust it had placed in the NVP had been betrayed so quickly, organized protests on a scale not seen since two decades previously, and made the same demands as before. This time however, Han set about fortifying his position within his party to prevent a premature removal from power. Otherwise adopting an identical position to his predecessor Hwang, the prime minister sent the police onto the street, and when the protestors responded with increasing violence, eventually declared martial law in the hopes that the army could forcefully suppress the protests.

Almost immediately after the declaration of martial law, the nation was stunned by the August Massacre, where soldiers opened fire into a crowd killing a dozen protestors and injuring almost a hundred. When more shootings occurred at riots which broke out immediately after the massacre, many of the protestors seemed to be cowed by the danger to their lives and left the streets. While Han initially believed he had been successful, the brief period of seeming calm that followed was actually a transition into an outbreak of political terrorism against the government and military. Many now-radicalized Sirimese, dissatisfied with the government and increasingly society as a whole, organized themselves and turned towards all-out violence in an attempt to induce meaningful change, including the Sirimese Compatriot Society of Kim Chang-ho, a Prostasist group that modeled itself on Serica’s ruling Compatriot Society.

Throughout 0015 R.C. the Sirimese government was confronted by increasingly common attacks such as assassinations of government officials and bombings while an initially bewildering array of dissident groups began to coalesce into a few organizations, threatening the emergence of a proper insurgency. During this time, contact was established between the Sirimese Compatriot Society and the Union State, which enthusiastically threw its support behind the group and began molding it in its image. By 0016 R.C. some mountainous and urban areas of Sirim were in almost all-out rebellion and the Union State, sensing that the Coalition was not taking a strong stand behind Sirim’s government, made the decision to up the stakes of its geopolitical confrontation with the Coalition and try to achieve a strategic victory.

In May, the Union State Terrestrial Forces launched Operation Vstrecha, to achieve a decapitation strike against Sirim’s government. Through a massive air and naval landing in the greater Yongseong area, the country’s leadership was taken by relative surprise and was captured or killed, while the military elsewhere in the country was attacked as it was left leaderless. Though organized resistance occurred for a few days, the full securing of Yongseong on the third day of the invasion and a lukewarm initial response by the Coalition sealed Sirim’s fate, and after a mass surrender of the Sirimese military, mopping up operations began as the Sirimese Compatriot Society (after being rebranded as the Sirimese branch of the Prostasist Party) was formally installed as the government of the new Sirimese Federation, under the leadership of the new Governor Kim Chang-ho. Afterwards, massive pre-planned purges across Sirimese society began to be carried out by the Oprichnik Corps as the totalitarian police state existing in the rest of the Union State began to be introduced to Sirim, setting the groundwork for its integration into the still-new superstate.