"Trebar."
"Yes ma'am."
"This is a single use item. Take it off and throw it away after your first shot. If Zhoie decides in the moment that she wants to continue you don't necessarily have to, but you absolutely must not risk pregnancy if she does not want it, am I understood?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Good. Remember, this is a gift to Zhoie as a friend and fellow woman, but I am doing it to give you the opportunity to fix your mistakes. Don't make more just because you can't control yourself, understood?"
"Perfectly ma'am."
"Excellent! Zhoie, your first time might be a bit scary or hurt a little, but I have no doubts that you will get used to it pretty quickly. Take it slow, stay calm, and you'll be fine. People have been doing this for as long as people have been around, so anything that feels weird is probably just part of the process. Do you understand?"
"I-I do."
"Wonderful! Now, go home and get busy."
- - - - -
Diana escorted them out of the room and up the front door, content that they had absorbed the lessons of her half an hour long combination of tirade and sexual education lecture. She didn't know how much they actually knew at the start, so she just gave them a general overview of the "do"s and "don't"s of intercourse, starting with some anatomy. With the help of some diagrams, illustrations, and videos courtesy of Arc, Diana felt she was able to get the points across well, the most important of which was the proper way to put on the condom.
Trebar, thankfully, seemed to have taken Diana's rant about how his actions were affecting Zhoie exceptionally well. She couldn't say he ever got to the point of being broken by her, but there was definitely remorse in both his expression and his actions.
Aside from that, they were surprisingly timid about that whole ordeal, both of them squirming in discomfort as she went over how they should go about intercourse, what each part of the body was, and what mistakes they should avoid making. She left out the parts about sexually transmitted diseases, summing it up as 'if you sleep around you'll regret it', but she was seriously wondering if STD's were even a thing here anyways. From what she had seen promiscuity was the norm here, and it would be weird if nobody had pieced together how those sorts of diseases worked after this long.
"How many condoms did you give them?"
"Huh?" Donovan blindsided her, not by being there unexpectedly but by revealing he knew what she did when she thought it was a secret. "How did you know?"
"Their cheeks were beet-red and they were actively avoiding each other's eyes. I'm not stupid Diana, how many?" Donovan pulled her into a hug and gave her a kiss.
Diana pouted in spite of his affection. She had been hoping he wouldn't notice, or at the very least would not bring it up if he did. Evidently he didn't feel like letting her get away with this one.
"One, just one."
"Good. Remember, when we run out we stop, at least until we're ready."
"But-"
"You knew what I would say when I found out. Were you planning on convincing me otherwise if I didn't know?"
Diana growled at him a little, she had made an oversight. Even if he didn't know, that wouldn't change his stance. No condom, no bedtime, that was his rule. He didn't need to keep a count so long as he followed that rule.
"Ahem." From the side, Merndil cleared his throat to get their attention. "There is something we need to talk about."
- - - - -
"I apologize for Rishtahn's actions." Upon closing the door to the room, Merndil bowed to Diana. "He may act against my wishes, but as a noble of my Empire I am at least somewhat culpable for the damage."
"We also apologize for-"
"No we don't." Donovan interrupted Diana as she tried to make ammends with Merndil. "We have done nothing wrong."
"Donovan, you crippled him!"
"And he unceremoniously attacked you."
"Enough, the matter of an apology is something for you to settle with Rishtahn. There are far more important matters at hand." Merndil walked over to take a seat on a chair next to Hlapven. "I'm sure you are at least somewhat aware of it by now, Diana, but there is a power struggle currently ongoing in the Empire."
Donovan and Diana sat down on the couch opposite to an incredibly nervous Len.
"I had guessed so from how you spoke of Rishtahn, but to hear that is actually the case is somewhat worrying." Diana didn't know whether or not Hlapven had revealed to Merndil that they had a deal surrounding this, so she played it safe. "Are we to assume that we have made ourselves a powerful enemy?"
"I don't know yet. He hasn't yet made it clear whether or not he supports my brother or someone else. Should he support my brother there would be problems, but I would not discount the possibility of a third power. How much difficulty they would present is a complete mystery."
"I see. . ."
"I will try to deal with any political drama he tries to put you through, but I can't deal with everything. Unfortunately, there is little I can do if he decides to hire some thugs to return the favor. He isn't likely to leave behind proof either."
"Will Diana be at risk of death?" Donovan did not beat around the bush.
". . . I'd like to say no, at least not while you are at the Sanctum. A fate worst than death awaits those who murder in the Great Csillacra's embrace, and they have the means to find out who ordered or requested such an act. That said, angry and irrational people don't think about the consequences as much as they should. I would take caution moving forward, don't go anywhere outside of the academy while you are alone."
Diana frowned slightly, understanding that some restrictions on her ability to move around freely were non-negotiable. On the upside, she was going to get a lot more time with Titanyana.
"Thank you for the warning."
"Think nothing of it. What I'm more concerned about has to do with Len." Len stiffened up in response. "While I commend him for coming to your aid, doing so has put him in an untenable position."
"He did nothing wrong though."
"I know that. However, this is a matter of opinion. I think his actions were a prime example of what every noble of our empire should strive to emulate . . . but Len isn't a noble. As far as anyone of note is concerned, a commoner acted in opposition to a high ranking member of the nobility in such a manner that resulted in serious damage to his person. In a normal scenario, that would reward him a live of slavery."
Diana put a hand up to her mouth to cover her gasp. Her stance on slavery would put her into conflict with the general (noble) public, but doing so for a crime he didn't commit was enough to put an end to his life as a freeman was horrifying to her.
"Once again, this situation is anything but normal. It will really depend on how Rishtahn plays this, but Len could end up executed."
"Executed?" Donovan didn't so much sound confused or wanting for confirmation as he did indignant. This was not without merit. Even if he was starkly unapologetic for his actions, he recognized that they were his and his alone. It was unthinkable to him - a man who understood organizational systems operated most efficiently when meritocracy was promoted, rules followed, and violations properly punished - that an innocent person be made to suffer for someone else's actions. He became even more . . . emotive . . . once Merndil nodded.
Donovan was hardly the type of person to let himself be consumed by anger, the emotions he expressed could only barely be placed under the general umbrella of wrath, but all of those present in the room got the message incredibly clearly. Donovan was regretting that he hadn't finished the job.
"Isn't there anything you can do?" Diana recognized that the best move for this situation was to move the conversation along, to look for solutions instead of sit stagnant on the problem. "I mean, you are the crown prince. Don't you have some way to get him off the hook?"
"I . . . no. Not yet at least. Not unless I am willing to sacrifice a great many things in the future, lives among that count." Merndil sighed and turned to Len. "For that I have to apologize, but there are some things more important than a single person."
"I thought he was the son of a General." Donovan was prodding for more information, something that might be able to help him form a plan. He cared little for the regrets and condolences of someone incapable of helping and he was awful at politics, but he could at the very least think about it and poke for methods that might not have occurred to his betters. "Can't you do something there?"
"General Arrelois' situation is not one I would consider stable."
"He is on the thinnest pane of ice in the political realm." Hlapven spoke in lieu of his liege, understanding that Merndil's relation with Arrelois precluded him from saying as much as he probably should. "If it weren't for the decree of the Emperor, the threat of Imperium Vrie, and the understanding amongst a select few powerful figures among he upper nobility that he is the Empire's greatest military asset, I have no doubt he would have been stripped of his rank and titles long ago. He is in no position to request that his son, his adopted son, be pardoned for an offense against said upper nobility."
"It is as sir Hlapven says. General Arrelois has no political capital with which he could bail Len out."
"You really can't do anything?" Diana asked again, pleading with Merndil in the hopes there was some 'Hail Mary' option he considered impossible.
Merndil could only look at her with a defeated expression as he bounced his knee, thinking about how he would continue the conversation.
"The internal politics of the Bulsarzian Empire are not what you would normally consider to be the standard for a nation our size. The nobility have far more power than they do in most others, and it has a lot to do with how our Empire came to be." Unable to decide where he should start with the mess that was the Bulsarzian Empire, Merndil defaulted to the beginning. Surely he could cover all of the important bits if he started from there.
"It was not founded by conquest as most others are, but as a union, a multilateral agreement amongst thirty or so independent kingdoms. As I understand it, the uniting force was a shared external threat, the precursor to our nemesis nation that now calls itself Imperium Vrie, or the Vrie Horde. They were much smaller back then, as were we, but they still posed a substantial threat to independent systems and smaller kingdoms. The Bulsarzian Empire was not initially a monarchy molded under the control a single individual, but a security arrangement between smaller nations in order to defend against and contain a common threat.
The guiding principle of the man who devised the organization, my ancestor, was that it should be a voluntary agreement, non-binding. Every nation that wished to join was given the opportunity to so long as there was a reasonably direct connection to the core members, and those which felt the agreement was not sufficiently defending their interests was free to leave. This way it was possible for others along the border of the threat to join our ranks, stymying the rate of their expansion and making our own defenses against them stronger in the process. Eventually nations began to join not only for the security benefits, but for the economic stability and political support such an organization could bring.
Of course this could not continue forever. That system began to break down. There were too many members, too many people to keep track of, too many internal conflicts. It became clear to that ancestor in his dying years that a change was necessary if that coalition was to survive and maintain it's initial purpose, to contain and defend against the Vrie. He spent a great amount of time, effort, and resources arranging meetings and trying to come up with a solution. The result was the creation of an 'Empire' under the 'rule' of a single family.
In reality, it was nothing more than a slight increase in the coalition's centralization. One leader, it was determined, would be better suited to set goals and organize the armed forces. With a succession dictated by blood and a general code of laws by which govern, there would be no perennial power struggle, no arguments between nations over matters the laws governed, and the factionalism that was running rampant within the coalition would be put to rest. At the time it seemed our ancestor was the best choice of ruler, a brilliant man with a competent son and a promising grandson with vast territorial core including three Verdant Globes that he considered his homeland - the relic of an Empire long since eroded.
Of course there were struggles as time passed. Some of my line were not as adept at rulership as others. Sometimes political crises would rear their heads over contentious issues both domestic and foreign. These would elicit further centralization, more power being placed into the hands of the emperor to make things convenient and reduce the instances of feuding, however many of the core principles still stand, some stronger than when the initial coalition was around.
Pre-eminent among those kept was the freedom of individual member states to join or leave so long as they have a reasonably direct connection to the core of the Empire. Every year there are those along our borders that are given our blessing to join. Every year there are those along our border and even some in our core that are given our blessing to leave. There are some we cannot afford to lose, of course, but they are often given benefits such that they have no reason to leave.
Another of the principles is the laws under which the Empire was initially united, laws that have changed and expanded with time but still remain core to our operation. They have been written down in Sanctum-Script with the help of the Sanctum and with the Arboreal Maiden's blessings we have been assigned arbitrators who serve to handle disputes with regard to these laws with complete and total impartiality. Even violations of the Emperor have been brought to trial, and if found guilty even he must pay the price.
Yet another of the relevant principles maintained and expanded upon is the right of the nobility to bring their grievances and advice before the Emperor. Vassal states to the Emperor may have their own subjects, but even those subject nobles must be permitted to speak with Emperor should situation allow for it. The nobility very frequently make their stances on topics known to my father, so often in fact that it precludes him from performing other duties. However these meetings precede even matters of military significance, the nobility must be heard. As you may have seen, this is something I strive to emulate. Be it during parties or class, I make it my purpose to hear out each and every person who approaches me with the intent to speak."
Merndil turned his head to make it clear he was looking at Diana.
"Even those who do not hail from the Empire.
It is because of those principles that the Emperor has limited authority over the personal grievances of the nobility such as this. We can not afford to displease the nobility, not because they would revolt but because there are laws surrounding this and they can bring my interference to my father's attention in such a way that he cannot ignore it. If all else fails, they can simply leave."
Merndil, finished with his history lesson, took a breath and reclined in his chair. Slowly he turned his head to Len, his leg beginning to bounce once more.
"I'm sorry Len. There really isn't anything I can do."
cakeonfrosting Gotta love defensive coalitions don't ya? NATO is my personal favorite, though I have to say the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (basically the United State's Monroe doctrine given a divine physical form) and SEATO are/were pretty neat.
Now I know I've said somewhere before that the Bulsarzian Empire was inspired by one of my first runs of Crusader Kings 3, but I wonder if any of my more historically inclined friends can figure out which real life nation their formation is based off of. The actual process similarities are incredibly loose, the difference between interplanetary realms and reality on Earth being extreme, but it is very much based on a real country. Hint:
SpoilerYou can the origin of this nation on the 'List of Military Alliances' page on Wikipedia
[collapse]
"Trebar."
"Yes ma'am."
"This is a single use item. Take it off and throw it away after your first shot. If Zhoie decides in the moment that she wants to continue you don't necessarily have to, but you absolutely must not risk pregnancy if she does not want it, am I understood?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Good. Remember, this is a gift to Zhoie as a friend and fellow woman, but I am doing it to give you the opportunity to fix your mistakes. Don't make more just because you can't control yourself, understood?"
"Perfectly ma'am."
"Excellent! Zhoie, your first time might be a bit scary or hurt a little, but I have no doubts that you will get used to it pretty quickly. Take it slow, stay calm, and you'll be fine. People have been doing this for as long as people have been around, so anything that feels weird is probably just part of the process. Do you understand?"
"I-I do."
"Wonderful! Now, go home and get busy."
- - - - -
Diana escorted them out of the room and up the front door, content that they had absorbed the lessons of her half an hour long combination of tirade and sexual education lecture. She didn't know how much they actually knew at the start, so she just gave them a general overview of the "do"s and "don't"s of intercourse, starting with some anatomy. With the help of some diagrams, illustrations, and videos courtesy of Arc, Diana felt she was able to get the points across well, the most important of which was the proper way to put on the condom.
Trebar, thankfully, seemed to have taken Diana's rant about how his actions were affecting Zhoie exceptionally well. She couldn't say he ever got to the point of being broken by her, but there was definitely remorse in both his expression and his actions.
Aside from that, they were surprisingly timid about that whole ordeal, both of them squirming in discomfort as she went over how they should go about intercourse, what each part of the body was, and what mistakes they should avoid making. She left out the parts about sexually transmitted diseases, summing it up as 'if you sleep around you'll regret it', but she was seriously wondering if STD's were even a thing here anyways. From what she had seen promiscuity was the norm here, and it would be weird if nobody had pieced together how those sorts of diseases worked after this long.
"How many condoms did you give them?"
"Huh?" Donovan blindsided her, not by being there unexpectedly but by revealing he knew what she did when she thought it was a secret. "How did you know?"
"Their cheeks were beet-red and they were actively avoiding each other's eyes. I'm not stupid Diana, how many?" Donovan pulled her into a hug and gave her a kiss.
Diana pouted in spite of his affection. She had been hoping he wouldn't notice, or at the very least would not bring it up if he did. Evidently he didn't feel like letting her get away with this one.
"One, just one."
"Good. Remember, when we run out we stop, at least until we're ready."
"But-"
"You knew what I would say when I found out. Were you planning on convincing me otherwise if I didn't know?"
Diana growled at him a little, she had made an oversight. Even if he didn't know, that wouldn't change his stance. No condom, no bedtime, that was his rule. He didn't need to keep a count so long as he followed that rule.
"Ahem." From the side, Merndil cleared his throat to get their attention. "There is something we need to talk about."
- - - - -
"I apologize for Rishtahn's actions." Upon closing the door to the room, Merndil bowed to Diana. "He may act against my wishes, but as a noble of my Empire I am at least somewhat culpable for the damage."
"We also apologize for-"
"No we don't." Donovan interrupted Diana as she tried to make ammends with Merndil. "We have done nothing wrong."
"Donovan, you crippled him!"
"And he unceremoniously attacked you."
"Enough, the matter of an apology is something for you to settle with Rishtahn. There are far more important matters at hand." Merndil walked over to take a seat on a chair next to Hlapven. "I'm sure you are at least somewhat aware of it by now, Diana, but there is a power struggle currently ongoing in the Empire."
Donovan and Diana sat down on the couch opposite to an incredibly nervous Len.
"I had guessed so from how you spoke of Rishtahn, but to hear that is actually the case is somewhat worrying." Diana didn't know whether or not Hlapven had revealed to Merndil that they had a deal surrounding this, so she played it safe. "Are we to assume that we have made ourselves a powerful enemy?"
"I don't know yet. He hasn't yet made it clear whether or not he supports my brother or someone else. Should he support my brother there would be problems, but I would not discount the possibility of a third power. How much difficulty they would present is a complete mystery."
"I see. . ."
"I will try to deal with any political drama he tries to put you through, but I can't deal with everything. Unfortunately, there is little I can do if he decides to hire some thugs to return the favor. He isn't likely to leave behind proof either."
"Will Diana be at risk of death?" Donovan did not beat around the bush.
". . . I'd like to say no, at least not while you are at the Sanctum. A fate worst than death awaits those who murder in the Great Csillacra's embrace, and they have the means to find out who ordered or requested such an act. That said, angry and irrational people don't think about the consequences as much as they should. I would take caution moving forward, don't go anywhere outside of the academy while you are alone."
Diana frowned slightly, understanding that some restrictions on her ability to move around freely were non-negotiable. On the upside, she was going to get a lot more time with Titanyana.
"Thank you for the warning."
"Think nothing of it. What I'm more concerned about has to do with Len." Len stiffened up in response. "While I commend him for coming to your aid, doing so has put him in an untenable position."
"He did nothing wrong though."
"I know that. However, this is a matter of opinion. I think his actions were a prime example of what every noble of our empire should strive to emulate . . . but Len isn't a noble. As far as anyone of note is concerned, a commoner acted in opposition to a high ranking member of the nobility in such a manner that resulted in serious damage to his person. In a normal scenario, that would reward him a live of slavery."
Diana put a hand up to her mouth to cover her gasp. Her stance on slavery would put her into conflict with the general (noble) public, but doing so for a crime he didn't commit was enough to put an end to his life as a freeman was horrifying to her.
"Once again, this situation is anything but normal. It will really depend on how Rishtahn plays this, but Len could end up executed."
"Executed?" Donovan didn't so much sound confused or wanting for confirmation as he did indignant. This was not without merit. Even if he was starkly unapologetic for his actions, he recognized that they were his and his alone. It was unthinkable to him - a man who understood organizational systems operated most efficiently when meritocracy was promoted, rules followed, and violations properly punished - that an innocent person be made to suffer for someone else's actions. He became even more . . . emotive . . . once Merndil nodded.
Donovan was hardly the type of person to let himself be consumed by anger, the emotions he expressed could only barely be placed under the general umbrella of wrath, but all of those present in the room got the message incredibly clearly. Donovan was regretting that he hadn't finished the job.
"Isn't there anything you can do?" Diana recognized that the best move for this situation was to move the conversation along, to look for solutions instead of sit stagnant on the problem. "I mean, you are the crown prince. Don't you have some way to get him off the hook?"
"I . . . no. Not yet at least. Not unless I am willing to sacrifice a great many things in the future, lives among that count." Merndil sighed and turned to Len. "For that I have to apologize, but there are some things more important than a single person."
"I thought he was the son of a General." Donovan was prodding for more information, something that might be able to help him form a plan. He cared little for the regrets and condolences of someone incapable of helping and he was awful at politics, but he could at the very least think about it and poke for methods that might not have occurred to his betters. "Can't you do something there?"
"General Arrelois' situation is not one I would consider stable."
"He is on the thinnest pane of ice in the political realm." Hlapven spoke in lieu of his liege, understanding that Merndil's relation with Arrelois precluded him from saying as much as he probably should. "If it weren't for the decree of the Emperor, the threat of Imperium Vrie, and the understanding amongst a select few powerful figures among he upper nobility that he is the Empire's greatest military asset, I have no doubt he would have been stripped of his rank and titles long ago. He is in no position to request that his son, his adopted son, be pardoned for an offense against said upper nobility."
"It is as sir Hlapven says. General Arrelois has no political capital with which he could bail Len out."
"You really can't do anything?" Diana asked again, pleading with Merndil in the hopes there was some 'Hail Mary' option he considered impossible.
Merndil could only look at her with a defeated expression as he bounced his knee, thinking about how he would continue the conversation.
"The internal politics of the Bulsarzian Empire are not what you would normally consider to be the standard for a nation our size. The nobility have far more power than they do in most others, and it has a lot to do with how our Empire came to be." Unable to decide where he should start with the mess that was the Bulsarzian Empire, Merndil defaulted to the beginning. Surely he could cover all of the important bits if he started from there.
"It was not founded by conquest as most others are, but as a union, a multilateral agreement amongst thirty or so independent kingdoms. As I understand it, the uniting force was a shared external threat, the precursor to our nemesis nation that now calls itself Imperium Vrie, or the Vrie Horde. They were much smaller back then, as were we, but they still posed a substantial threat to independent systems and smaller kingdoms. The Bulsarzian Empire was not initially a monarchy molded under the control a single individual, but a security arrangement between smaller nations in order to defend against and contain a common threat.
The guiding principle of the man who devised the organization, my ancestor, was that it should be a voluntary agreement, non-binding. Every nation that wished to join was given the opportunity to so long as there was a reasonably direct connection to the core members, and those which felt the agreement was not sufficiently defending their interests was free to leave. This way it was possible for others along the border of the threat to join our ranks, stymying the rate of their expansion and making our own defenses against them stronger in the process. Eventually nations began to join not only for the security benefits, but for the economic stability and political support such an organization could bring.
Of course this could not continue forever. That system began to break down. There were too many members, too many people to keep track of, too many internal conflicts. It became clear to that ancestor in his dying years that a change was necessary if that coalition was to survive and maintain it's initial purpose, to contain and defend against the Vrie. He spent a great amount of time, effort, and resources arranging meetings and trying to come up with a solution. The result was the creation of an 'Empire' under the 'rule' of a single family.
In reality, it was nothing more than a slight increase in the coalition's centralization. One leader, it was determined, would be better suited to set goals and organize the armed forces. With a succession dictated by blood and a general code of laws by which govern, there would be no perennial power struggle, no arguments between nations over matters the laws governed, and the factionalism that was running rampant within the coalition would be put to rest. At the time it seemed our ancestor was the best choice of ruler, a brilliant man with a competent son and a promising grandson with vast territorial core including three Verdant Globes that he considered his homeland - the relic of an Empire long since eroded.
Of course there were struggles as time passed. Some of my line were not as adept at rulership as others. Sometimes political crises would rear their heads over contentious issues both domestic and foreign. These would elicit further centralization, more power being placed into the hands of the emperor to make things convenient and reduce the instances of feuding, however many of the core principles still stand, some stronger than when the initial coalition was around.
Pre-eminent among those kept was the freedom of individual member states to join or leave so long as they have a reasonably direct connection to the core of the Empire. Every year there are those along our borders that are given our blessing to join. Every year there are those along our border and even some in our core that are given our blessing to leave. There are some we cannot afford to lose, of course, but they are often given benefits such that they have no reason to leave.
Another of the principles is the laws under which the Empire was initially united, laws that have changed and expanded with time but still remain core to our operation. They have been written down in Sanctum-Script with the help of the Sanctum and with the Arboreal Maiden's blessings we have been assigned arbitrators who serve to handle disputes with regard to these laws with complete and total impartiality. Even violations of the Emperor have been brought to trial, and if found guilty even he must pay the price.
Yet another of the relevant principles maintained and expanded upon is the right of the nobility to bring their grievances and advice before the Emperor. Vassal states to the Emperor may have their own subjects, but even those subject nobles must be permitted to speak with Emperor should situation allow for it. The nobility very frequently make their stances on topics known to my father, so often in fact that it precludes him from performing other duties. However these meetings precede even matters of military significance, the nobility must be heard. As you may have seen, this is something I strive to emulate. Be it during parties or class, I make it my purpose to hear out each and every person who approaches me with the intent to speak."
Merndil turned his head to make it clear he was looking at Diana.
"Even those who do not hail from the Empire.
It is because of those principles that the Emperor has limited authority over the personal grievances of the nobility such as this. We can not afford to displease the nobility, not because they would revolt but because there are laws surrounding this and they can bring my interference to my father's attention in such a way that he cannot ignore it. If all else fails, they can simply leave."
Merndil, finished with his history lesson, took a breath and reclined in his chair. Slowly he turned his head to Len, his leg beginning to bounce once more.
"I'm sorry Len. There really isn't anything I can do."
cakeonfrosting Gotta love defensive coalitions don't ya? NATO is my personal favorite, though I have to say the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (basically the United State's Monroe doctrine given a divine physical form) and SEATO are/were pretty neat.
Now I know I've said somewhere before that the Bulsarzian Empire was inspired by one of my first runs of Crusader Kings 3, but I wonder if any of my more historically inclined friends can figure out which real life nation their formation is based off of. The actual process similarities are incredibly loose, the difference between interplanetary realms and reality on Earth being extreme, but it is very much based on a real country. Hint:
SpoilerYou can the origin of this nation on the 'List of Military Alliances' page on Wikipedia
[collapse]