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Explosions Rock the Union, an Old Enemy Returns
4th of Veilsend, 1849
A little under two years ago, a routine meeting of the Supreme Council, intended to showcase the recently finalized Third Five Year Plan, was rudely interrupted by the detonation of a bomb in an adjacent room. The blast and the ensuing fire would take a number of lives, most prominent of which being People’s Commissar for the National Economy Krazymir Molentiç, who survived the bombing itself but not the injuries he sustained during it. The Grand Palace was also badly damaged, with nearly half of the complex requiring extensive repairs.

The emergency measures put in place after the bombing seemingly served their intended purpose, as no more incidents occurred, and after a full month of quiet, they were ended. Recent events have proven that to have been a mistake. On the morning of the Fourth of Veilsend, all across Acaris, bombs exploded either within or extremely close to government buildings. The docks in Teryminovzrydurm were hit with multiple explosions, as was the CSPA Party Headquarters in Keitannzrydurm. Among the less major targets were military bases, administrative offices, and police and fire stations. An attempt was made to also bomb the People’s Academy of Naval Warfare, but this attempt failed owing to the presence of Red Army men that had been assigned to guard the currently empty building. A pair of intruders were caught sneaking in through a back window, with one of them carrying a large bag over his shoulder. Within this bag was an obviously improvised explosive, along with a copy of the architectural schematics of the Academy.

Interrogation of the captured would-be bombers revealed little, as neither knew much that could be extracted from them, but one vital piece of information *was* uncovered. This attempt was indeed connected to the other, much more successful bombings, and the culprits admitted to being members of the ‘New Alliance to Save Acaris’, an apparent successor to the counterrevolutionary group that carried out the assassination of Chairman Keitann. Both men were young mine workers from the Acarisian south, and would be given a provisional sentence of ten years hard labor with an additional 5 years of mandatory political education, with the official sentencing being delayed until the conclusion of the overall investigation.

In a statement given an hour after the last bomb went off, Chairman Mstizinzar vowed to “see every last counter-revolutionary terrorist dragged from their hiding places into the unforgiving light of the people’s justice” and to “not rest for even a single moment until all internal enemies of the Revolution have been defeated”. At the end of his statement, he would reveal the existence of the People’s Commissariat for the Safety of the Revolution, an internal branch of the People’s Commissariat for the Interior, devoted to the safeguarding of the Acarisian Revolution against covert threats, both external and internal, and publicly tasked the PCSR with bringing the New Alliance to Save Acaris to justice.

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The “Battle” of Nozhdurmaltrak
18th Embertide, 1850
The hunt for the New Alliance to Save Acaris has been going on for over a year now. Progress has been slow, with agents of the People’s Commissariat for the Safety of the Revolution having to work through literally thousands of leads gathered from every corner of the Union. Most of these leads were false starts, and those that weren’t had a solid chance of being tied to a completely unrelated case. On the 20th of Summersend, in the small town of Azhkuraltrak, located in the People’s Republic of Ulsozh, a number of suspicious reports coming from the party apparatus caused nearly 40 agents to be covertly dispatched. What they uncovered wasn’t anyone from the New Alliance to Save Acaris, but merely a case of corruption, with the President of the Azhkurtaltrak Worker’s Council, Milrekh Kstrimalzh leveraging his position to provide himself and his friends with superior housing and better access to various amenities than the rest of the populace.

Kstrimalzh was promptly arrested for corruption, and during the subsequent search of his office and home, not only was a mountain of evidence of said corruption uncovered, but also a single, partially burnt letter. This letter contained correspondence between Kstrimalzh and a member of the New Alliance to Save Acaris, whose name is unknown as a result of the fire damage. While not a great deal of information could be extracted from the mostly ruined letter, there was a location named: Nozhdurmaltrak, a moderately large farm town recently connected to Teryminovzrydurm by the Red Rail Program.

A response was organized immediately, with both PCSR agents and Red Army men being stationed in concealed locations around Nozhdurmaltrak under the cover of darkness. Just over two weeks later, on the 18th, the inhabitants of Nozhdurmaltrak were awakened by the sounds of explosions and gunfire. In the center of town, the recently built RR-NDA (NDA standing for NozhDurmAltrak, RR standing for Red Rail), was under attack. Two teams of armed men, dressed in a mix of shabby uniforms of the old Princely Guard and slightly less shabby civilian clothes, stormed the train station from two directions, overwhelming the few guards and managing to seize the building in a little over five minutes.

As the attackers were attempting to figure out how to use the station’s radio set, Red Army men, tipped off by PCSR agents who had observed the earlier assault, surrounded the RR-NDA. This was noticed by the men inside the station, who quickly abandoned their attempts to wrangle the radio and took up positions by the two doors, as well as under the station’s main window. While they were clearly expecting a protracted assault, the Red Army men simply maintained the perimeter while an artillery piece was transported from the local army warehouse.

A single demand of surrender was given, and refused, before the people of Nozhdurmaltrak had their ears shocked by the report of a 100mm field gun and the deafening crash of a high explosive shell. The westernmost wall of the RR-NDA was reduced to rubble and a large portion of the roof collapsed. The attackers inside of it were no luckier, with only a single one of the thirty-odd men surviving, with this one survivor bearing grievous injuries he is unlikely to recover from. Among the rubble, a small leather-bound notebook was recovered from one of the corpses. On those blood-soaked, shrapnel torn pages were the words of an announcement meant for all of Acaris.

Should this attack have gone to plan, the RR-NDA’s radio would have been used to broadcast the manifesto of the New Alliance to Save Acaris, which calls for a total overthrow of socialism, and the establishment of a dictatorship along completist lines. The final lines of the manifesto are a call to the people of Acaris, imploring them to “rise up and throw off the lies of the reds” and to “fight for true order”. The offices of the Chairman and of the Premier both issued statements following the end of the violence, condemning the New Alliance to Save Acaris as a counterrevolutionary terrorist organization, and levying a charge of high treason against every member.

King Speaks Out Against Invasion
14 Embersend 1850

King Nicholas Romanoff V has taken the opportunity of his latest public engagement to speak on the invasion of Myeon by North Xinhao.

Against the backdrop of chandeliers and golden forks of the annual Memorial Gala for Fallen Soldiers of the Great War, Nicholas taps his wine glass to call diners to listen.

"Distinguised guests, lords and ladies of the realm, and friends of Krondalsmark, I call upon you to remember those fallen in the Great War fighting against unjust tyranny and conquering nations. I speak now for I fear a similar event is unfolding in the east with North Xinhao invading Myeon. We cannot turn a blind eye and I call upon us all to provide aid to the Myonese people in these times."

The call to aid has begun early formation of a Krondish Myonese Aid Organization receiving donations to provide aid to citizens affected by the invasion. It has also begun a popular movement by more militant Krondes to actively send weapons to Myeon.

For now the government is mute on the matter. But the government cannot ignore the King for long due to his popular sway.

Kausiut: A dark omen of things to come, or merely a book?
10 Wintertide, 1851

Originally released in Embertide of 1850 within Siiqir and Gaardic countries, Kausiut, or Planet of the Setting Sun, is a book telling the tale of a variety of Siiqirans and Novogaardians attempting to survive Alcris becoming the staging ground for a war between beings from far-away stars, who destroy the planet's ecosystem and people in blind hatred of each other.

The book was written over the course of a few years by a Siiqiran woman, Sakari Lusa, with several others providing spell-checking and input, including her Novogaardic-speaking husband Miki. Sakari has been quoted as saying that the book was "a passion project, that I didn't expect to become as successful as it did".

And who can blame her for thinking so? Not much more than a month after the book's release, Myeon found itself under attack by North Xinhao, and all of a sudden, the idea of Alcris becoming a battleground, caught in a war between opposing forces that the common man couldn't quite understand, was brought up again in the public conscious, especially in the nations where the book was first published.

It's agreed that the book is a metaphor for conflict, but not everyone can agree on what conflict that is. Some claim it's meant to represent the Great War, others argue more recent conflicts, and there are even a few who think Sakari is an oracle who predicted the invasion of Myeon. She has yet to confirm or deny any of these theories, leaving the readers to ponder her true intentions... and whether or not the book is an omen of times to come.