Poverty.
Sickness.
Famine.
Death.
War.
These are the hallmarks of a country in turmoil. Vietnam is one such country, or rather, was. A new president of the Socialist Republic has taken the seat of power after his predecessor's admittedly convenient assassination. His name is Nguyen Binh, a veteran of the tumultuous 60s and 70s that rocked the small Indochinese country from the inside-out. His first step in establishing Vietnam as a world power was the incorporation of advanced science first designed by the Nazis, and then perfected through his own ingenuity.
Water became clean as soon as it left the rivers and lakes. Rice production skyrocketed with floating gazebos and greenhouses. Cities expanded and the lush jungles were preserved in magnificent hanging gardens. The heart of this cultural and technological expansion resided in Saigon, the ancestral capital of the small nation hidden on the peninsula. Here, the people finally experienced a heightened sense of reality by merging with the modern age, or perhaps something beyond it.
Poverty, literally erased, by the explosion of commerce. Sickness, destroyed, by futuristic hospitals and medicine. Famine, already addressed by the monolithic spike in food production. Yet the two most prominent problems commonly addressed by any utopia still remained. People still died unjustly, and revolution always stood on the horizon.
Many call Nguyen a prophet. Others, a hero. There are groups that retain the memories of the past and haunt Nguyen's footsteps, hurling slurs like "coward" and "murderer" behind his back. Many think he is a madman, perhaps even a borderline dictator. His policies have always been for the ultimate good of Vietnam, and its economy has never been better. However, in order to protect that economy, a disturbing increase in military strength has to be maintained.
Army
Enter the Stormtroopers, soldiers literally programmed with the tactical genius to overcome any obstacle while being cybernetically augmented to accomplish those feats. Even one is more than a match for the average street-level vigilante, a population that has sprung up in droves in the last few years. Stormtroopers are equipped with a very distinct uniform that combines maneuverability, protection, and insulation. They are greatly resilient to heat, cold, and gas attacks in all their forms.
The Stormtroopers make their main base in Saigon, but some barracks do exist outside of the illustrious metropolis.
The most common weapon available to the Stormtroopers is the TR-67 assault rifle. Completely automatic with adjustable settings for burst and single-round dispensing, its .45-caliber ammunition is specially designed with a nano-mechanoid tip. Each bullet is inherently acidic to metal, but only upon a distinct impact. Once it comes into contact with enemy armor or shields, the microscopic nanobots start to burn through. These machines are programmed to instinctively "eat" anything that is not already coded with a specially designed series of intertwining barcodes, meaning that they will not corrode Stormtrooper armor or anything native to Stormtrooper architecture.
These firearms are able to change ammunition at the touch of a dial, meaning that a squad can simultaneously suppress a crowd with rubber bullets and gas pellets while also fatally shooting key leaders.
Despite Nguyen's best efforts, Vietnam is still not a utopia. He has made it safe enough for those in Saigon, as well as many other cultural centers, to enjoy a prosperous life. But it seems that the Vietcong have turned on him. Once, he made good friends with their leaders against the Americans. Now, the guerrilla war is on his shoulders. Though he has fought it before and knows the tactics of his people well, he finds it difficult to manage a growing civil war.
Heavier support comes in the form of the UAD Juggernaut and Medusa-class walker drones. These walking automatons are controlled through a suitable pilot's brain after unfortunate accidents or death befall them, which is often the case in the inhospitable killing fields of Vietnam. These dreadnoughts patrol the landscape, preserving their hosts like ancient war sarcophagi while also commanding the battlefield. They are often controlled by deceased officers or elite bodyguards, such is the case with Nguyen's personal Centurions, which are comprised of one-hundred of the best UAD warriors science and natural selection has ever conceived.
The UAD Juggernaut is, as the name suggests, almost impossible to stop outside of Class 100 and above blockbusters. Even then, they are extremely difficult to deal with due to their calculating strength factors up to ten, which allows them to multiply the acting forces within their mechanical husks up to Class 1,000. Weapons on the Juggernaut are severely limited due to their reliable strategy of bashing apart enemy lines. Mostly contained within the forearms, these guns and various other ballistic launchers are purposely hardened at the end so that they can operate like fists in melee.
Meanwhile, the Medusa pattern UAD is fitted for ranged combat and ranged combat only. Forming the first line of land-to-air defenses, UAD Medusae are fond of heavy autocannons, flak blasters, and the tried-and-true plasmoid molecular disruptors when taking down aircraft, missiles, drop troops, and any other manner of aerial threat. However, Medusae are not entirely exposed while on the ground. Their legs are fashioned to be heavier than the Juggernauts' and they can simply step on armored vehicles, crush and kick soldiers, as well as turn their heavy weapons suited for taking down reinforced aircraft down on much smaller and easier to hit targets.
Terrifyingly enough, there is an equator between the Stormtrooper and the UAD walkers. These are classified as TWs, "big f*ckers", or, more professionally Thunder Warriors. Armed with antimatter gatling rifles (which are typically mounted on tripods for Stormtroopers), Thunder Warriors are also equipped with armored plating rivalling that of the UAD. What makes them different from the UAD walkers is that they are not merely brains in a robot body, but rather entire torsos or other, more salvageable, remains of promising soldiers. The Thunder Warriors, curiously, do not cover their faces - nor do they need to. Their skulls have been reinforced to the point where headshots are simply indications of where the enemy is. Chemical weapons do not affect their mechanized breathing tubes or optics. They are a perfect blend of man and machine, and once the Thunder Warriors descend on a foe, there are no survivors.
Furthermore, Thunder Warriors are able to become amphibious just by holding their breath. Their increased lung capacity exceeds even that of the hippopotamus and they can march across entire riverbeds in minutes. What makes them even more terrifying is that they can literally pop up out of thin air due to advanced dropship technology. Loaded into large artillery guns like shells, a squadron of Thunder Warriors can be aimed and fired upon an enemy position, crash-land, and emerge from the debris without even flinching from the force of impact.
What makes and has made the armies of Vietnam so difficult to face time and time again is that the country itself relies on guerrilla warfare and has perfected it to a science. Millions of miles of tunnels run through the rolling hills and twisting jungle corridors. There have been dozens of wars fought primarily underground and for supremacy of these tunnels. What Nguyen has accomplished in improving these hidden roadways is that he has changed them from dirt to metal, revolutionizing Vietnamese warfare by turning its landscape into one enormous bunker. Stormtroopers, Thunder Warriors, and even the towering UAD walkers are free to roam from place to place, unimpeded by ambushes due to their undeniable dominance in the tunnels. It is said that Vietnam will always stand if its people can find a way underground. Thanks to Nguyen, his rule over the country will not shake easily.
But Nguyen does not want to rule Vietnam with an iron fist. He targets those revolutionaries who have gone out of their way to destroy what he has built up for his people. Those ungrateful rioters who tear down schools and hospitals because they were funded by Nguyen's bank administrators are frequently those massacred by the Stormtrooper battalions. He is eager to sit down and talk with those who simply want to have their voices heard, and their concerns met. It is only when violence reaches a fever pitch that Nguyen is forced to meet it with the unrelenting hammer of justice. Even when he does send his Stormtroopers out to kill, he personally holds a funeral for those lost in the crossfire and offers to give those families affected free housing.
Symbol and Policy
Many have criticized Nguyen's usage of the swastika, calling it "unethical."
"Look around you. There are no smokestacks here. No chimneys leading down into furnaces where there are bodies instead of firewood. I do not endorse the practices of Nazism. They were foolhardy, ignorant ideals. Besides, I am of half-Vietnamese ancestry. I would not be considered 'Aryan' no matter how hard I tried. I use the swastika turned the way it is because that is the way the Buddhist god Kali is represented. He is the liberator of souls, and a wise sorcerer. With such practitioners like Madame Rose and Doom, I do not think that there is any room to argue that magic isn't real. The swastika has existed for thousands of years before the Nazis slandered it, and it will exist for thousands of years after they have gone. It is a geometric shape. One does not criticize the triangle for being a triangle, after all."
Nguyen only wants what is best for his people. He has seen them through their worst time in modern history, and now he is leading them through what is possibly their most prosperous age to date.
Only time will tell if he is successful.
---
OOC:
- Typical location rules, stick to the site guidelines and we'll be good.
- No destroying of anything that has conceivable value. A few buildings here and there are fine.
- Sell the security. They're not something you can knock out with one or two punches, especially if you find yourself against a Thunder Warrior.
- Have fun, and stay out of trouble :P
Log in to comment