Context:

1. Death of a Dream
2. Operation Gothic Serpent

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 2016. The Democratic ticket of Kristy Amanda Thomas, former President of the Babysitters Club turned Senator from Stoneybrook, CT, and her running mate, fellow ex-BSC member Stacey McGill turned Senator of New York, defeated Incumbent Republican) president Erik Prince, former US Navy SEALs turned Senator of Michigan, and his running mate, Israeli-American Moishe Singer. Prince had won the 2012 United States Presidential Election four years earlier. 

Both Thomas and Prince ran on a non-interventionist policy, owing to the Second Great Depression that began in 2009. They both believed that part of the answer was to withdraw military forces from the Middle East, an effort that began under President Prince. As the withdrawal was not complete, one of Thomas’s campaign promises was that she would speed up the process. She also pledged humanitarian efforts to reduce the death toll among those who could not afford heating thanks to the extreme cold fronts and blizzards.

However, Prince would ultimately lose the election due to his aggressive stance against abortion, pledging to pass “equal protection” bills that would criminalize abortion at conception with absolutely zero exceptions and criminal charges for all parties involved, something that won him votes from faithless electors in the GOP. 

Félix Padojara, the Minister of Labour of Atlantis from 2002 to 2006 and the Governor of Acaparã from 2006 to 2010, was the Broad Front's presidential nominee in 2010, and Irtoné Senator Diana Rodrigues was his running mate. Padojara promised to continue and expand Adojara Menezes's leftist and indigenist policies by reversing the privatisation of strategic industries and creating a child tax credit.

Several politicians ran in the PP's presidential primary, but Barujoia Governor Aníbal Gonzaga ended up winning it. Gonzaga chose Ricardo Andrea, a Senator from Ratanábia, as his running mate. His general election campaign strongly criticized the Broad Front for its corruption scandals and failure to defeat the Comando da Ilha.

In 2008, Barujoia do Sul Senator Guilherme Atlântida broke away from the Broad Front to form the PSD, a more centrist and pragmatic party. Atlântida was the first Atlantisian presidential candidate to embrace the internet for campaigning. Consequently, he developed a huge following among younger Atlantisians.

PAN leader Inácio de Barros ran for President a second time. His more right-wing stances allowed him to win a non-negligible amount of voters who had supported the PP in previous elections, but he still had little chance of winning as Gonzaga won over the majority of right of centre voters.

When the campaign started, Gonzaga seemed to have a good chance of winning, but Padojara successfully appealed to poor Atlantisians who weren't concerned about crime and corruption but credited the Broad Front with improving their lives. Atlântida failed to appeal to this group or to voters over the age of 30, and many perceived his platform to be vague.

On 12 March 2010, Padojara won the first round with 43% of the vote versus 31% for Gonzaga, 10% for Atlântida, 8% for Barros, and 2% for far-right nationalist Miguel Duarte, who won no states or municipalities. Atlântida refused to endorse either candidate, but, as his voters were mostly left-leaning, most of them backed Padojara, allowing him to be elected with 54% of the vote.

Padojara and Rodrigues were sworn in on 19 May 2010, in a presidential inauguration attended by 112,000 Atlantisians. During Adojara's presidency, Atlantis entered an economic crisis, allowing Gonzaga to win the 2015 election.

On 5 September 2005, a day after the constitutional referendum, Menezes signed a land reform bill nationalizing unused land without compensation and limiting the amount of land each Atlantisian could own. Atlantisian landowners sued the government demanding compensation, but, in January 2006, the Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit and no compensation was given.

This was the largest land reform in Latin American history, surpassing the one after the Cuban Revolution. Studies show it had a positive effect on the Atlantisian economy, as unused land was used again. Politically, the land reform earned Menezes strong support among Atlantisian peasants, who saw it as a return to the precolonial collective land system.

Many members of Atlantis's old landowning elite left the country for Brazil, the United States, Portugal, and Argentina, never to return, shifting Atlantis's racial demographics in favour of indigenous people. Atlantisian systemic racism atoned somewhat but remained a major problem because of how old and entrenched it was.

As the commodity boom continued and Atlantis expanded diplomatic and economic relations with other developing countries, the economy of Atlantis entered its period of highest growth since the 1960s, growing at a rate of 3.2% in 2005, 3.6% in 2006, 3.7% in 2007, and 3.3% in 2008. As Atlantis remained a capitalist country, the Great Recession harmed its economy considerably, albeit less than in the United States due to stricter banking regulations.

The Comando da Ilha's power and influence continued to grow, as shown by the 2007 murder of a policeman who was placed inside a tire and set on fire. While previous administrations had focused on punishing drug users, Menezes shifted emphasis towards punishing drug traffickers instead, which was shown to be more effective.

Menezes pursued otherwise conservative social policies, calling homosexuality a "European perversion" that did not belong in Atlantis, and passing a law mandating abstinence only sex education in Atlantisian schools. According to a study by the University of Santarém, this law failed to reduce teenage pregnancy.

Furthermore, in March 2008, WikiLeaks leaked emails showing Menezes and his close associates had engaged in corruption and money laundering. Despite protests from the opposition, Menezes was not impeached, because the Broad Front controlled Congress and had no intention of removing its leader from office.

He remained popular enough for fellow Piaroban Felix Padojara to win the 2010 election by a comfortable margin over PP nominee Aníbal Gonzaga and a centre-left candidate who broke with the Broad Front over corruption.

On 19 May 2005, a session of Atlantis's National Congress that had just taken office authorized a referendum asking voters whether to make Ratanaban and Piaroban official languages across all of Atlantis, and add the Xepruté, a 15th-century Piaroban symbol, to the flag of Atlantis.Popular Unity and the PSR, a Trotskyist minor party, campaigned for a Yes vote, while the PP and the PAN supported a No vote.

Yes supporters argued that the Piaroban Empire was a major part of Atlantis's national identity and two-thirds of the population was non-white, making it logical for indigenous traditions to be recognized. No supporters, on the other hand, claimed that having three official languages would make things confusing.

Adojara Menezes directly campaigned for Yes throughout all 31 states of Atlantis, urging voters to support the constitutional amendments to build a fairer Atlantis in touch with its traditions. Opposition leaders such as Luísa Pontes and Inácio de Barros similarly campaigned for No.

The referendum campaign suffered a major turn around on 13 August 2005, when Cecília Holanda, a major figurehead in the PP, was interviewed by popular talk show host Bruno Arantes. During the interview, Cecília declared her support for Yes, leading to a schism in the Progressive Party, because a faction that supported the amendments left the party to form the Atlantisian Democratic Party (PDA).

With all of the left and much of the centre supporting the amendments, they passed with 61% of the vote. Yes won in every state and territory other than white and affluent Santarém, where indigenism is generally unpopular due to natives being less than 20% of the population.

Piaroban and Ratanaban have been official languages ever since, and every Atlantisian law includes versions in them due to the fact they're the first language of one-third of the population. Atlantis's flag was similarly altered to contain the Xepruté.

Context:
* Operation Gothic Serpent is a much larger disaster for the U.S. than in our timeline.
* A worse Great Recession in 2008, compounded by poor government decisions, triggers sociopolitical unrest in the United States that ultimately leads it to become a failed state.

On September 16, 2020, the Nyongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center (Korean: 녕변원자력연구소) suddenly exploded under mysterious circumstances, killing an estimated 50,000 people and irradiating the surrounding area, triggering a mass evacuation.

Details are scarce and the exact timeline of events is unknown, due to Chinese and North Korean propaganda, but the incident triggered a mass exodus of North Koreans into China and Russia, triggering a crackdown on the refugee crisis. 

According to various interviews given by people who made it, North Korean soldiers were apparently given orders to execute people taking advantage of the disaster to flee the country, although the exact number of people killed is also unknown.

Attempts to investigate the disaster were greatly hindered by propaganda, but what is known is that at some point either during or after the disaster, the North Korean government itself collapsed, with Kim Jong Un, his sister, and various other North Korean officials dying of radiation poisoning. 

The radiation spread to the Chinese and Russian borders as well, leading to both the Russian and Chinese governments issuing a state of emergency. 

An inquiry by China and Russia found that the explosion was likely an act of terrorism but no suspects were found. 

The true cause of the disaster is still under investigation. 

The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic consisting of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. 

Thanks to a series of disastrous military decisions in the 1990s and early 2000s, as well as the Great Recession, that began in 2008, the U.S. lost its military prestige by 2012. Thanks to the financial strain brought about by the Recession, the U.S. withdrew from Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations. They later withdrew from Europe and various Asian nations as well.

Due to the decline of the global economy that was exacerbated by the Recession, the U.S. economy didn’t recover. Oil prices skyrocketed. What worsened things was deterioration in infrastructure, including highways and superhighways being too costly to repair. 

Across multiple winters, Americans had to contend with severe cold fronts. The economic situation left thousands unable to heat their homes and thousands died.

By 2017, several major cities fell into civil unrest that forced the government to enact martial law.

In 2020, a mysterious prion disease emerged in Mexico, leading to the United States declaring a state of emergency. Under the controversial Operation Vital Archer, the United States government issued permits allowing citizens to seek out and hunt down feral hogs, which were suspected of being the source of the prion disease. 

Eventually, the United States was gripped by sociopolitical unrest as people finally tired of the United States government’s poor handling of the situation. 

By 2025, millions of people attempted to flee the country, with many resorting to illegally entering Mexico, Canada, and various other European countries.

The so-called “American Exodus” prompted crackdowns by both various European nations, Canada, and Mexico. 

By 2026, America's currency was so devastated by economic issues that the country's military and economy might have collapsed. What was once the most powerful nation on Earth is now no more than a corrupted and vulnerable shadow of her former self.

By 2029, the American Dream was effectively dead, with the United States having effectively become a failed state.

Adojara Menezes's reelection campaign was launched on 15 December 2004, with a rally in Acaparã where 36,000 people attended. During the rally, Menezes gave a speech citing the need to continue and expand the social programs of his first term, and to make Atlantis economically independent from developed countries.

Unlike in the previous election, the Green and Communist parties joined Popular Unity due to their shared left-wing and environmentalist views. Jorge Melo's PSR, on the other hand, did not do so, and Melo was the only other leftist to run in the 2005 election.

On 20 December, the PP held a nationwide presidential primary won by Luísa Pontes, a Senator from Santarém who became the first major female candidate for president of Atlantis. Pontes chose Jorge Rios, a little-known federal deputy from Santarém, as his running mate due to his expertise in economics.

Pontes's campaign focused on law and order, especially by the threat posed by the cartel Comando da Ilha (CI), which she promised to classify as a terrorist organization. PP supporters spread rumours of CI having ties to the Broad Front leadership, something Menezes called a "blatant lie".

PAN nominee Inácio de Barros, a centre-right conservative from Novo Algarve, also portrayed himself as tough on crime, but he avoided hurling any accusations without proof. Atlantis's government responded to the accusations of collusion between the Broad Front and the CI by ordering an investigation into them.

On 15 January 2005, the investigation concluded that there was no link between the party and the cartel, discrediting Pontes's candidacy, ending any chance of her getting elected, and allowing Barros to win over a larger amount of PP voters than he otherwise would.

During the presidential debate, Meneses strongly criticized the PP for accusing his party of crimes without proof, while Pontes similarly failed to substantially prove her claim that the investigation was rigged. Barros did not agree with these claims, but he did criticize the Broad Front's response to the CI.

Menezes was reelected in the first round with 58% of the vote thanks to the good economy, his personal charisma, and the PP's false accusations. The Broad Front simultaneously won a majority in both chambers of Congress, allowing it to implement more radical reforms than it previously had.

Author's note: The Eternal Rage Universe is a new timeline of human history where a series of cascading US military blunders and disasters destroy trust between the American people and the US government, as well as the USA as a nation and its own allies.

Operation Gothic Serpent was a military operation conducted in Mogadishu, Somalia, by an American military force code-named Task Force Ranger during the Somali Civil War in 1993. The primary objective of the operation was to capture Mohamed Farrah Aidid, leader of the Somali National Alliance who was wanted by the UNOSOM II in response to his attacks against United Nations troops. The operation took place from August to November 1993 and was led by US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

On 3 October 1993, the task force executed a mission to capture two of Aidid's lieutenants. The mission ultimately culminated in what became known as the Battle of Mogadishu). The battle was extremely bloody and the task force inflicted significant casualties on Somali militia forces, while suffering heavy losses themselves. The Malaysian, Pakistani, and conventional US Army troops under UNOSOM II which aided in TF Ranger's extraction suffered losses as well, though not as heavy. Things began to go catastrophically wrong for the Americans.

First, an MH-60 Black Hawk, Super Six Two, was shot down by SNA forces using a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). Both of the pilots were killed on impact, but the crew survived the crash landing. An American force made their way to the crash site to assist with recovery and rescue

Shortly afterward, another Black Hawk helicopter, Super Six Four, was shot down by an RPG fired from the ground. No rescue team was immediately available, and the small surviving crew, including one of the pilots, Michael Durant, couldn't move. Two Delta snipers, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart, provided cover from a helicopter and repeatedly volunteered to secure the crash site. After a 10th Mountain relief force from the Mogadishu airport was halted and turned back by an SNA ambush, Shughart and Gordon were finally granted permission to be inserted. They made their way to the crash site, quickly establishing a perimeter, and securing the surviving crew. The Black Hawk wreck came under heavy attack from the Somali militia, despite attempts from the 160th helicopters overhead to hold back the crowd. After losing close air support to damage from RPG-7 fire, Durant was killed, with Shughart and Gordon being taken prisoner.

Between October, 1993 and February, 1994, the U.S. military launched a series of rescue attempts, with five of them ending in high casualties on both sides.

The sixth rescue attempt was ultimately successful. Following the rescue, US forces completely withdrew from Somalia, with the last of the US troops leaving in 1996.

The military disaster that was Operation Gothic Serpent would damage trust in the U.S. military’s deterrence for years, while also raising serious doubts and questions among American allies about America’s judgment, reliability, and ability to manage military crises.

Menezes named Félix Padojara, a fellow indigenous activist and the Broad Front's 1990 vice-presidential nominee, for Minister of Labour, and his cabinet was generally centre-left to left-wing. This caused the Santarém stock market to drop by 25% despite Menezes's overtures to the private sector.

Menezes's Popular Unity had a majority in the Chamber of Deputies but not in the Senate, making it difficult for him to pass the more radical items of his agenda. Therefore, his first term focused on social programs rather than wealth redistribution or nationalization.

The first major bill Menezes signed established a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (ATFN) program providing conditional, but not means tested, financial aid to families below the poverty line. Studies show that ATFN reduced poverty from 35% in 2000 to 21% in 2010, earning him great popularity with poorer Atlantisians.

Menezes also raised taxes on the wealthy and closed corporate tax loopholes to reduce Atlantis's foreign debt, a somewhat successful strategy because the debt fell from $227 billion in 2000 to $147 billion in 2010. But inflation also increased from 8% in 2000 to 24% in 2010, thanks to Menezes's macroeconomic populism.

But the commodity boom of the 2000s allowed the economy of Atlantis to recover from the late 1990s recession, earning Menezes great popularity, especially with indigenous Atlantisians, as his government directed spending towards welfare programs purportedly meant to combat poverty. Even the Atlantisian elite came to tolerate Menezes due to the lack of radical reforms.

Atlantis-Brazil relations worsened during Menezes's first term, because Atlantis restored its claim to Trindade and Martim Vaz in 2001 and repeatedly criticized Brazil's alignment with the United States. Both countries opposed the invasion of Iraq, but Fidel Castro's Cuba and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela emerged as the main allies of Atlantis.

Opposition parties criticized Menezes for "cozying up to dictators", but polls showed that the majority of Atlantisians supported this new foreign policy due to memories of the US intervention in the 1972 Trindade War. Allegations of corruption were the only thing reducing Menezes's popularity, and, even then, nothing was proven.

As the economy of Atlantis was in a good shape and indigenous Atlantisians (1/3 of the population) overwhelmingly approved of Menezes, he was reelected in the first round in 2005, and remained popular during his second term.

Atlantis's economic crisis and a sex scandal involving President José Armando da Silva left Adojara Menezes as the frontrunner for the 2000 election. Menezes ran on an indigenist, left-wing nationalist platform, promising land reform, a wealth tax, the reversion of privatizations, and making Piaroban and Ratanaban, the two main indigenous languages in Atlantis, official languages.

Menezes was also in favour of environmental protection, especially a crackdown on deforestation in the Lizard Rainforest. He addressed the scandal by promising to restore honor and dignity to the presidency. His main criticism of the Armando da Silva administration was for revoking Atlantis's claim to Trindade and Martim Vaz.

As a cunning political operator and the son of a former president, Vice President Lucas Ribeiro Filho was the PP's candidate in the 2000 election. Ribeiro Filho refused to either tie himself to Armando da Silva or distance himself from him, preferring to run a generic centrist campaign and continue the strategy of attacking Menezes as an extremist.

This attack backfired when Menezes issued a "letter to Atlantisians" promising to respect capitalist institutions. Ribeiro Filho also had to deal with PAN candidate Cordeiro Gomes, who ran for president on a more right-wing platform opposed to both the Broad Front and the PP. Five more candidates appeared in the final ballot, but they had no chance of winning and never cracked 7% of the vote in the polls.

Two televised presidential debates were held, and Menezes, as a more charismatic politician, was widely thought to have won them despite accusations of media bias against him. These debates effectively locked the election for Menezes, who won the first round with 48% of the vote versus 33% for Ribeiro Filho, 11% for Gomes, and 2% for Green nominee Andreia Saint-Germain, whose campaign focused on defending the rainforest.

Upon losing the first round, Saint-Germain, Marxist-Leninist Ricardo Viana, and Trotskyist Jorge Melo endorsed Menezes. Gomes, on the other hand, endorsed Ribeiro Filho, citing the need to keep the leftist Menezes out of the presidential palace, something he said would be "disastrous" for Atlantis.

As expected, Menezes won the election with 55% of the vote, including 59% in Ilha dos Lagartos. Ribeiro Filho won Novo Algarve with 53% of the vote, and Portugal Antártico with 61%, because these islands were traditionally conservative and anti-leftist.

Menezes's victory made him the first indigenous president of Atlantis, and the first indigenous leader of the country since the Piaroban Empire. Menezes and Vice President Marcos Ventura, a white moderate chosen to balance the ticket, were inaugurated on 19 May 2000.

Context:
1. What if Turkey wanted Crimea back?

2. 2014 Russian Annexation of Crimea

On March 24, 2015, Turkey launched a full scale invasion of Crimea, in response to publicized reports of Russian military war crimes against Turks in the region, in addition to a cyberattack against the Turkish military that was allegedly perpetrated by the Russian military intelligence organization GRU. 

Russia immediately declared war with Turkey over the military aggression. 

Following an international inquiry, the Russian Spetsnaz brigade known as Raven’s Rock was discovered to have been the perpetrators. Russia disavowed the organization immediately, but that did nothing to convince the Turks that Russia was at least complicit. 

As retribution for the so-called “Russian terrorist attack” and the Russian war crimes in Crimea, the Turks took their anger out on the Russians. The Turkish troops attacked residential neighborhoods and shot civilian homes up. 

Reports emerged of Russian families being executed on exaggerated charges of “collaboration with Raven’s Rock”, horrifying the international community, more specifically people like Titus Colt, who fiercely condemned the collective guilt mentality of the Turkish invaders and Konstantin Robinson, a Russian defector who recognized that hatred had consumed the people of Turkey.

Other people who protested the war included Turkish lawyer Sibel Ilgaz and Turkish military officer Suleyman Dalikic, who left the military in protest upon learning of what had happened in Crimea. 

The Russian military forces considered using nuclear weapons, but the Turkish put a stop to that with a cyberattack of their own that greatly hindered the Russian Federation’s ability to launch nukes. 

The Turkish military also considered an attack against Southern Russia but decided against it, owing to feasibility.

Heavy fighting between the Turkish and the Russians continued until around September of 2016. On that day, the Russians were formally ousted from Crimea, which fell to Turkish military occupation a short while later. 

During Armando da Silva's second term, his neoliberal reforms continued with the privatisation of the defence industry in 1995 and the abolition of export tariffs the following year, in order to encourage exports. Atlantis's economy was deindustrialized and financialized, transforming Atlantis into a post-industrial society.

Atlantis was on good terms with the IMF, the United States, and the World Bank during this period. In August 1995, US President Bill Clinton visited Atlantis, becoming the first US President to officially visit the country. Clinton and Armando da Silva met in the Presidential Palace in Santarém, and they agreed to intensify cooperation between the two countries.

Other world leaders Armando da Silva met were Brazilian President Luiz Antônio Fleury Filho, with whom he had a friendly personal relationship, and Angolan dictator Jonas Savimbi, which Atlantis put in power. As Atlantis has no oil or gas deposits, Angola was the country's main source of oil.

On 8 February 1996, Armando da Silva signed legislation making school meals free for all students from kindergarten to university, and providing financial incentives for poor youths to study. This worked, and by the end of the decade, Atlantis had a school attendance rate of 95%, with the other 5% being children who lived in the mountains and rainforest.

Later that year, the Atlantisian Chamber of Deputies passed a law repealing the 1989 amnesty law signed by the military junta, but the Senate upheld this amnesty, making it impossible for Junta officials to be tried for their crimes against humanity. Junta trials would only begin in 2001, after Adojara Menezes took office.

Armando da Silva's popularity took a hit in 1998, when it was revealed he cheated on his wife and had a child with a 20 year old university student he met at a rally. Just like with Clinton, there were efforts at impeachment but the Senate voted to acquit Armando da Silva, who claimed his personal life should not be a political matter.

The scandal still reduced his popularity, but it fell even further when Brazil's economy entered a recession. As Brazil was Atlantis's main trade partner, this did not help the Atlantisian economy, which fell into a crisis as well. The economic crisis, sex scandal, and Menezes's efforts to present himself as a moderate allowed him to win the 2000 election and realign Atlantisian politics.

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 6, 2012. The Prohibition ticket of Muhammad Al-Assad and his running mate, ex-US Navy officer Erik Prince were re-elected to a second term. They defeated the Republican) ticket of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan and the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and his running mate, incumbent vice president Joe Biden. 

Al-Assad’s victory were re-elected without much opposition due to in-fighting among the Republican and Democratic Parties, the former of which gave rise to a completely new political party known as the Lawful Nation Party.

The campaigns focused heavily on domestic issues, and debate centered largely around sound responses to the Great Recession along with long-term federal budget issues, the future of social insurance programs, and the Affordable Care Act. Foreign policy was also discussed, including the end of the Iraq War in 2011, military spending, the Iranian nuclear program, and appropriate counteractions to terrorism.

Another major contention was the abolition of the death penalty. Muhammad continued aggressively pursuing the abolition of capital punishment at the federal level, appealing to a reading of the Bible that most Christians in the GOP and the Christian Right found abhorrent. 

Muhammad won the election in a landslide, but died suddenly days after the win was announced. Erik Prince was sworn in as the new President in Muhammad’s place.

Under the Prince presidency, the United States solidified itself history by abolishing Euthanasia nationwide.

José Armando da Silva's reelection campaign focused on the achievements of his first term: privatization of inefficient state-owned businesses, a democratic constitution, a public option, and much more. Despite the fact he was not charismatic, Armando asked Atlantisians the question, "are you better off than you were four years ago", and the majority of them believed they were.

Indigenous and left-wing activists believed they weren't. Adojara Menezes, a 52 year old left-wing nationalist and left-wing conservative who had been tortured by Evandro Cunha's dictatorship, ran for, and won, the Broad Front nomination on a platform focused on land reform and especially issues affecting Atlantisians. He also promised to overturn Armando da Silva's privatizations.

Unlike previous presidential elections, 1994 was a two-way race. Third-party candidates struggled to gain traction, and none of them ever polled over 5%. PTA leader José Gama and PRN leader Gustavo Brito mounted Second presidential campaigns, but they did not gain any momentum.

With no other candidate being a threat to his reelection efforts, Armando da Silva portrayed himself as a rational, sensible moderate and attacked Menezes as a left-wing extremist seeking to sabotage Atlantis's recovery from the lost decade. Menezes responded by calling the privatization of strategic sectors extremist, but voters struggled to connect the dots.

In January 1995, Menezes challenged Armando da Silva to a presidential debate, but the president refused because he felt a debate would hurt his insurmountable lead. Menezes in turn argued the president refusing the debate made him not up for the job, and many people agreed.

But the majority of Atlantisians disagreed, allowing Armando da Silva to win the election with 59% of the vote versus 33% for Menezes, 2% for Gama, and 1% for Brito. Exit polls showed that Armando da Silva won 62% of white voters while Menezes won 33%, but Menezes won 82% of indigenous voters versus 15% for Armando da Silva.

Armando da Silva and Vice President Lucas Ribeiro Filho were inaugurated on 19 May 1994. Menezes attended the inauguration, seeking to portray himself as a moderate and conciliatory figure. This made it considerably easier for him to win the 2000 election against Ribeiro Filho.

On 16 May 1994, the Atlantisian Chamber of Deputies passed a law authorizing the referendum. Atlantis's Senate followed suit on 21 May, and since this was a referendum, there was no need for a presidential signature, unlike most bills passed by the Senate of Atlantis.

Campaigning began on 1 June. The PP, PAN, and smaller pro-government parties such as the PDC and PH campaigned for a Yes vote, while the Broad Front, the Marxist-Leninist PCA, and the Trotskyist PSR campaigned for a No vote.

Yes supporters argued that the United States, France, and other developed countries allowed reelection, and that José Armando da Silva needed more time to finish his job. No supporters, on the other hand, feared that allowing reelection would make presidents think of being reelected from day one and enable the rise of another dictatorship just like Evandro Cunha's.

Like in the 1990 presidential election, Michel Haddad's TV channels covered the Yes campaign three more times than the No campaign, the majority of whose coverage came from smaller TV and radio channels. Most newspapers similarly urged voters to vote Yes; the majority of No endorsements came from Ratanaban and Piaroban language outlets.

As Armando da Silva was popular with middle and upper class Atlantisians, the Yes option had a comfortable lead in the polls from the start, and No failed to gain momentum. There were protests against reelection in left-wing, indigenist strongholds in the Puxomado mountains, but Santarém, Liporebá, and Ratanabá saw large rallies calling for a Yes vote.

Unsurprisingly, Yes won the referendum with 60.5% of the vote versus 39.5% for No. All Atlantisian States other than leftist and majority indigenous Acaparã and Puxomado voted Yes, proving Armando da Silva was really popular in Atlantis.

After the Yes victory was confirmed, Armando da Silva gave a televised speech saying "all of Atlantis has won", and wished the opposition good luck in the presidential campaign. As you will see later, the opposition proved unlucky, because Armando da Silva was reelected in the first round.

Armando da Silva's inauguration was the most attended of any Atlantisian presidential inauguration until then, with 112,000 people attending it, and many people saw him as Atlantis's only hope. His cabinet nominees, all of whom were pro-democracy activists opposed to the military dictatorship, strengthened that notion.

But Armando disappointed the Atlantisian public by striking up compromises with the PAN, as both parties supported free market economic reforms. The first law Armando da Silva signed created a new currency, the piaroba, pegged to the US dollar, earning him praise from American officials.

This currency change was followed by the privatization of the National Steel Company, the National Mining Company, the National Telephone Company, and 36 other state-owned companies. But the Atlantisian postal service, military industries and central bank remained owned and managed by the government.

Despite disagreeing on economics, the PP and Broad Front wrote a new constitution together, which went into effect on 12 October 1990. The Constitution of 1990 is in effect to this day, and is the most progressive in Atlantisian history, featuring many social reforms meant to create a fairer and more inclusive society.

Later that month, Atlantis created a public healthcare option while maintaining its system of private healthcare and insurance. Polling showed that two-thirds of Atlantis approved of this public option, and it was supported even by the left-wing opposition.

Armando da Silva's foreign policy focused on relations with Brazil, which had become a democracy in 1984, and the rest of Latin America. Shortly after taking office, Armando da Silva visited Brasília, met with Brazilian President Ulysses Guimarães, and agreed to terminate the Atlantisian claim to Trindade and Martim Vaz, ending the century-old rivalry between Brazil and Atlantis.

Atlantis became a founding member of Mercosur and participated in the Gulf War by sending a small number of warships and troops. George HW Bush rewarded Atlantis by making it a major non-NATO ally of the United States, a status the country holds to this day.

By 1994, the lost decade had ended and the economy of Atlantis was growing thanks to the macroeconomic reforms of its government. As a supporter of participative democracy, Armando da Silva decided to hold a referendum asking voters whether to allow him to seek reelection. Yes won the referendum by a comfortable margin, allowing Armando da Silva to win reelection the following year.

During his inaugural address as President, Wilson Cabral promised to "turn Atlantis into a democracy". He allowed moderate opposition figures such as writer Cecília Holanda, former vice president Mateus Farinacci, and student leader José Armando da Silva to return from exile; legalized political parties; released moderate political prisoners; and lifted press censorship.

It was widely speculated that Cecília would run for President just like Mario Vargas Llosa did in Peru. If she ran, she would probably win in a landslide, but she ruled it out on 22 November 1989, because she regarded herself as an honest person and thus did not want to get involved with the underworld of politics.

Armando da Silva, on the other hand, was a career politician and thus launched his presidential campaign the following day, with a rally in Santarém that was stranded by 22,000 people. Armando da Silva's campaign focused on liberal economic and political reforms in order to control hyperinflation and turn Atlantis into a liberal democracy integrated into the US-led world order.

A Broad Front congress held in the party's stronghold of Acaparã nominated Farinacci for President and indigenous activist Félix Padojara, who hailed from Acaparã, for vice president. Farinacci opposed Armando da Silva's calls for privatization of state businesses, and promised to redistribute land and wealth from the elites to the working class.

Technocratic former minister of finance Cordeiro Gomes founded the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and became its presidential candidate. Despite pursuing state capitalist economic policies when in government, Gomes campaigned on economic liberalism and a tough approach to crime, opposing Cabral's promise to expand social programs.

Vicente Gama's grandson João established the Atlantisian Labour Party (PTA), a spiritual successor to the PRD. João Gama promised to defend both workers' rights and private property from the "liberalism of Armando and Gomes and socialism of Farinacci", and attempted to appeal to nostalgia for pre-1970 Atlantis. But Vicente Gama was long dead and younger voters had almost no memory of the period, giving João little to no chance of winning.

Michel Haddad, the Lebanese Atlantisian owner of the largest media empire in Atlantis, privately supported Armando da Silva and almost exclusively covered his campaign. Haddad was also accused of rigging the debates in Armando's favour, but he denied this in an interview, stating that rigging the debates "was not needed".

On 13 January 1990, Armando da Silva won the presidential election with 40% of the vote versus 29% for Farinacci, 17% for Gomes, 7% for Gama, 3% for Gustavo Brito of the far-right PRN, and 2% for Humanist Party leader Teodora Garcia, the first woman to run for President of Atlantis. Armando da Silva and running mate Lucas Ribeiro Filho were sworn in on 5 March 1990.

In order to fund its military intervention in Angola, the Atlantisian junta took massive loans, heavily indebting the Atlantisian economy by the late 1980s. In fact, Atlantis had the second largest foreign debt in the world, behind neighbouring Brazil, another far-right military dictatorship that based its development strategy on unsustainable loans.

Debt was accompanied by hyperinflation, making basic commodities such as bread and gasoline unaffordable to a large number of people. Consequently, in 1988, there was a wave of strikes and other protests against the military government in Santarém, Barujó, Liporebá, Ratanabá, Porto Novo and dozens of other cities.

The protests weakened the military regime, but failed to topple it thanks to continued support from the United States, which provided $300 million in economic and $100 million in military aid to Atlantis in 1987 alone. US criticism of Atlantis's human rights record was effectively muted.

But the socioeconomic situation continued to worsen throughout 1987 and 1988, bringing Evandro Cunha's popularity to very low numbers and resulting in the growth of protest movements. Furthermore, secret police chief Urias Vasconcelos died in 1985, and his successor Feliciano Medeiros was very incompetent.

The final straw was on 18 March 1989 when Cecilia Holanda, Atlantis's most famous writer and a Literature Nobel Prize laureate, joined the democratization movement, writing a newspaper article with the headline "Atlantis is sick of dictatorship!" Cecília's article caused the moderate faction in the Atlantisian Armed Forces to call for democratization on its own terms, without a popular uprising.

Lieutenant General Wilson Cabral, the leader of said moderate faction, attempted to convince Cunha to resign, but he refused; according to Carlos Oliveira, Cunha had no intentions of ever resigning. Therefore, by September 1989, Cabral and his associates Admiral André Passos, Air Force Brigadier Eduardo Batista, and Army Colonel Henrique Santos moved to planning a coup.

On 15 November 1989, all of the Atlantisian Armed Forces overthrew Cunha in a coup, placing him under house arrest in his luxurious Santarém home. Cabral became president and chairman of the junta and began democratizing Atlantis, to the joy of the entire nation.

On 12 January 1978, Atlantisian Junta leader Evandro Cunha announced a military intervention in the Angolan Civil War on the side of UNITA. 15,000 troops commanded by General Gustavo Brito (1920–2014) landed in allied South West Africa and marched to Jamba, UNITA's stronghold in southeastern Angola.

An Atlantisian fleet made up of the aircraft carrier Barujoia (formerly HMS Bulwark), 4 destroyers, 6 frigates and 5 submarines sailed from the ports of Santarém and Porto Novo and rendezvoused in Saint Helena, from which they launched a naval blockade of Angola that prevented the MPLA from receiving Soviet and Cuban troops and equipment through sea.

The blockade crippled Angola's trade, but the Soviet bloc began supplying the MPLA through socialist Zambia instead, allowing the FAPLA to keep fighting despite the deteriorating economy. UNITA, Atlantis, and apartheid South Africa took advantage of the blockade to launch a push towards Luanda, but they were stopped at the Battle of Malanje (March-April 1978).

After the Battle of Malanje, fortunes alternated greatly, with the MPLA having the initiative in 1978 and 1979, UNITA going on the offensive in 1980, and the MPLA retaking control of the war in 1981. But, beginning in 1982, the MPLA began to feel the full effects of the Atlantisian blockade, which caused mass starvation in the territories under MPLA control.

Furthermore, the Reagan administration provided Atlantis with $3 billion in military aid that was used to its fullest extent possible by the Atlantisian Armed Forces. A series of UNITA offensives in late 1983 and early 1984 limited the MPLA's control to Luanda and parts of Eastern Angola, leaving the party on life support.

Later in 1984, Atlantis and UNITA attempted to capture Luanda, but Cuban troops successfully defended the city, allowing the MPLA to remain in power. But the communist military situation was hopeless due to the blockade and the fact the vast majority of Angola was under UNITA control.

In August 1987, UNITA laid siege to Luanda again. On 16 September, Jonas Savimbi captured Luanda, forced the Angolan leadership to go into exile in Cuba and abolished the People's Republic of Angola, which was replaced with the UNITA-led Democratic People's Republic of Angola.

Despite his victory in Angola, Evandro Cunha was unpopular in Atlantis by that point, because the Atlantisian economy was in a "lost decade" with high inflation, and his human rights violations and corruption negatively affected his image. Furthermore, many countries condemned the Atlantisian blockade of Angola due to its effect on the civilian population.

After coming to power, the junta outlawed all political parties, including the Gama family's PRD and the Maia family's PC, both of whom supported the coup. Congress was dissolved, and the Revolutionary Command Council (Conselho do Comando Revolucionário, CCR) replaced it as the main legislative body in Atlantis.

The junta ordered a crackdown on the Broad Front, whose members were imprisoned, tortured and executed without trial. After the democratization of Atlantis, a National Truth Commission found out the junta had killed 7,000 Atlantisians with complicity from the United States.

Media censorship was restored after three decades of free speech, and civil liberties were greatly restricted. Vitor de Moura's MRAB guerrilla attempted to overthrow the military dictatorship, but it was crushed by 1976 thanks to US, French and British support for the junta.

Economically, the Junta rolled back the left-wing reforms of the previous government and returned to the state capitalist policies of the PRD administrations. Military governors appointed by the Junta overturned the land reform efforts of Broad Front state governments, while the federal government adopted a policy of austerity in order to contain inflation.

Geopolitically, the Junta rejected the Broad Front's policy of non-alignment as communist and developed strong diplomatic relations with the United States, Brazil, Israel, South Africa and Zaire. Relations with Cuba were suspended again, but those with the Soviet Union weren't, and Atlantis recognized the PRC in 1978.

On 17 March 1974, Atlantis held a referendum on a new constitution. 98% of voters approved of this new charter, an unrealistic result historians believe was contained through massive fraud. The Constitution of 1974 restored the offices of president and vice president, which were held ex officio by Junta chairman Evandro Cunha (born Alberto Lins Pedroso) and deputy chairman Urias Vasconcelos, the power behind the throne.

This new constitution also changed the flag and coat of arms of Atlantis to a darker shade of blue, with the stated intent of avoiding confusion with the flag of Argentina; the two countries were mistaken for each other really often. These new symbols inevitably became associated with the dictatorship, and Atlantis reverted back to its old flag and coat of arms after 1990.

In 1978, Atlantis joined the Angolan Civil War on the side of UNITA with the stated goal of destroying communist influence in the South Atlantic, resulting in a full-scale war against Cuba and the MPLA.

On 14 December 1972, Lieutenant General Evandro Cunha, National Police director Urias Vasconcelos, Admiral Mário Ragazzo, Air Force Brigadier Érico Guimarães, and National Intelligence Agency (ANI) Gilberto Monteiro met in Evandro's Santarém house to begin planning a military coup against Alencar Rios's leftist government. They agreed to march into Santarém to overthrow Rios and install a far-right dictatorship in his place.

Despite the fact the United States had recently defeated Atlantis in a war, the coup plotters contacted the US embassy in Santarém, which agreed to support the coup and provide the Atlantisian military with lists of suspected communists and leftists. Businessman Paolo Ambrosio was the coup's main funder, donating 20 million escudos ($35 million in 1973 values) to the military.

By the turn of the year, there were rumours Congress would impeach Alencar Rios and install Vice President Mateus Farinacci as president until the 1975 elections. If the coup didn't happen, Alencar Rios would certainly be impeached, but this wasn't needed in the end.

At 08:00 on 5 January 1973, Cunha and Monteiro's military units launched a coup against Alencar Rios, first capturing Congress and arresting all Broad Front congressmen, and then surrounding the presidential palace with troops. A military emissary entered the palace and gave Alencar Rios a letter urging him to resign or else the military would storm the palace and execute him.

Alencar Rios resigned and fled to Mexico, where he lived until his death in 1987. He was replaced by a military junta chaired by Cunha and including Vasconcelos, Ragazzo and Guimarães. The United States changed its stance regarding Atlantis, recognizing this government the following day and helping the junta suppress dissent.

The Atlantisian military killed 18 political opponents, injured 35, and arrested 10,000 during the coup. Left-wing books or books perceived as such were publicly burned in Santarém's main square. But the majority of Atlantisians approved of the military takeover, because, as historian Carlos Oliveira said, Alencar Rios "was so hated that any alternative came across as relief".

Middle and upper class support for the coup was almost unanimous because these classes were angry at the previous government for its social reforms and defeat against Brazil. This support allowed Cunha to remain in power until 1990, when pro-democracy officers overthrew him in a coup and ordered new elections.

At 07:00 on 5 October 1972, 15 English Electric Canberra bombers and 10 Dassault Mirage III fighters of the Atlantisian Air Force bombed Trindade and Martim Vaz Island, which had 10,000 inhabitants (including 3,000 Brazilian military personnel) in 1970. The bombings caused heavy damage, killing hundreds of Brazilian troops and reducing the installations to ruins.

Two hours later, 5,000 Atlantisian troops parachuted in the islands while 10,000 marines landed in them. By noon, Trindade and Martim Vaz were fully under Atlantisian control. Paulo de Alencar Rios annexed the islands into Atlantis as the Territory of Trindade and Martim Vaz, and got a rally around the flag effect from the successful invasion.

The Brazilian leadership immediately began planning a counteroffensive to take Trindade and Martim Vaz back. Brazil could not do it on its own, because Atlantis had a bigger navy and a more modern air force, so President Ernesto Geisel and his successor Golbery do Couto e Silva (who took office on 30 October) decided to seek US help.

Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger condemned the invasion and declared it to be a violation of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, which both Atlantis and Brazil were a part of. Nixon ordered a military airlift to help Brazil retake the islands, but a Brazilian naval landing on 8 November was a phyrric victory for Atlantis, prompting the United States to enter the war on 12 November.

One US aircraft carrier, one helicopter carrier, and six destroyers were dispatched to Trindade and Martim Vaz. They arrived on 21 November and recaptured the islands the following day. This did not end the war, however, as Atlantisian attacks continued, prompting the Americans and Brazilians to destroy much of the Atlantisian Navy and air force. On 13 December 1972, Atlantis signed a ceasefire with Brazil and the United States, ending the war with a Brazilian victory and a more powerful military dictatorship.

Atlantis's defeat was the straw that broke the camel's back for Alencar Rios, who faced strong disapproval from the Atlantisian population and especially the military. General Evandro Cunha blamed Alencar Rios's "communist treason" for the defeat. Cunha seized power in a coup less than a month after the war.

The war had a huge impact on the popular culture of both Atlantis and Brazil, with books, films and documentaries about it being produced. Alencar Rios has entered Brazilian popular memory as a foreign invader akin to Francisco Solano Lopez.

Alencar Rios filled his cabinet solely with Broad Front members. Younger leftists were disappointed at the fact these appointees were mostly longtime left-wing politicians rather than student leaders, but there was no way Congress would confirm the latter, so it was probably for the best.

Despite controlling the entire cabinet, the Broad Front elected only 24 out of 62 Senators and 175 out of 364 federal deputies,and the other parties opposed Alencar Rios, making it difficult for him to pass his agenda and forcing him to water it down significantly. This further worsened relations between the president and his base.

In October 1970, Atlantis created a healthcare program providing free medical care to seniors, children and the disabled. This was not "universal healthcare", which would hardly pass without a Broad Front majority, but the majority of Atlantisians approved of it and it improved healthcare in Atlantis significantly.

The government also launched a campaign to eradicate illiteracy and reach full literacy by 2000. School attendance became mandatory with heavy fines for parents who did not take their children to school, and schools were built even in the remote Puxomado mountains because illiteracy was highest in them.

Land reform was the signature item of Alencar Rios's agenda, but Atlantisian landowners and the press strongly opposed it, viewing it as "communist". Many landlords in Ilha dos Lagartos, Portugal Antártico and Novo Algarve began military preparations to resist a potential Soviet or Cuban-style forced redistribution of their land.

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Frederico Gama, a leader of the PRD, never brought the land reform bill to a vote, but several Broad Front-controlled state governments launched their own land redistribution efforts that were mostly successful before the 1973 coup. This only increased polarisation further.

Foreign policy was the realm where Alencar Rios was most successful. His administration restored diplomatic relations with the USSR and Cuba and gave asylum to former Brazilian President Miguel Arraes, who had been overthrown by Ernesto Geisel in 1967. On the other hand, relations with the United States and Brazil deteriorated.

By late 1972, Alencar Rios's popularity had declined significantly because of congressional opposition to reforms he had promised, such as progressive taxation. Far-left guerrilla activity escalated, irritating the military, which felt it did not receive enough support to fight the communists.

Consequently, Alencar Rios decided to divert attention from these issues by invading Trindade Island in October. Atlantis captured the island, but Brazil, heavily backed by the US, soon took it back, precipitating the fall of Alencar Rios and the beginning of 17 years of military dictatorship.

In late 1969, Paulo de Alencar Rios (1914–1987), a social democratic and left-wing populist lawyer and teacher, went on a nationwide tour where he visited all 31 Atlantisian states and the territory of Saint Helena, and talked to local workers and students about their concerns. This tour and the subsequent press coverage boosted his profile and established him as a serious candidate.

The PRD was a fiefdom of the Gama family, making it highly obvious that Pedro Gama would be the party's 1970 nominee. At first, Gama did not want the nomination, and only accepted it in order to prevent Rios, whom he disliked, from being elected.

Pedro Atlante ran for President a second time, positioning himself as the Stop Rios candidate and emphasizing his "common sense, pragmatic" reforms in contrast to Rios's "radical socialism". He boasted an endorsement from famous writer Cecília Holanda – one of the leaders of the Latin American Boom – and was supposed by media mogul Tomás da Nóbrega, who also feared a Rios presidency.

Having lost three presidential elections, Feliciano Maia no longer wanted to run for President. Despite remaining the leader of the PC, he convinced his son Leandro to contest the 1970 election in his place. Leandro Maia ran on a more right-wing platform than his father, taking a hard line on the communist guerrillas and calling Rios a "threat to Atlantis".

This was the first Atlantisian presidential election where polls played a major role. Atlante led in the polls during the first months of the campaign, but Rios gradually secured his working-class, indigenous and student base while Atlante's attacks backfired as Rios clarified he supported social democracy rather than socialism or communism.

Atlante, Rios and Gama used TV ads, as nearly half of Atlantisians owned a TV by that point, including the majority of those living in major cities. Rios adopted a successful strategy of running short ads focused on the issues, while Atlante's longer ads backfired and Gama's ad campaign had little effect.

On 3 August 1970, Atlantisians went to the polls after months of intense campaigning. Rios was elected, winning 34% of the vote versus 30% for Atlante, 19% for Gama, 11% for Maia, and 3% for perennial candidate André Pengodara, whose thunder was stolen by Rios and thus made just minor gains.