The Parable of the Gilded Republic

In the heart of the Gilded Republic, the Golden Eagle perched once more atop his highest tower. From this vantage, he surveyed the world and found its old arrangements tedious. The pacts that had bound the world for generations, forged in the embers of the last Great War of Ashes, had grown brittle. The Eagle, in his wisdom, decided it was time to shatter them completely and let the pieces fall where they may, for a new and more glorious age—his age—was at hand.

The first sign of this new age was not a great tremor that shook the world, but a subtle shift in the wind at home. For years, the Eagle’s Watchers had diligently kept the “Unchained Dogs” in their kennels. The Dogs were a mangy and vicious pack, devoted to the purity of the Republic’s soil and given to violent frenzies. The old Watchers had hunted them, scattered them, and locked their alphas in iron cages. But the Golden Eagle installed a new kennel master, a loyalist who saw no evil in the Dogs’ barking. The Watchers were commanded to look away. And so, the kennels were thrown open. The Unchained Dogs, sensing their newfound freedom, began to gather in the forests and fields, sharpening their claws, practicing their drills, and preparing for a hunt, confident that their master would no longer stop them. They were being cultivated as the vanguard for a new, harder-edged patriotism.

As the Dogs were being unleashed at home, old powers were being unshackled abroad.

Across the Great Western Ocean lay the Teutonic Heartland, home of the Iron Phoenix. After the Great War of Ashes, the victors had clipped the Phoenix’s wings, decreeing that it should never again build a great army. For eighty years, this leash held. But now, the great Northern Bear was growling on the Heartland’s borders. The Golden Eagle, seeing his chance, did not just loosen the leash; he severed it entirely. “Re-forge your wings of iron,” he commanded. “Build the strongest army on this continent.” The Phoenix, hearing the call, began to furiously rebuild its legions, investing mountains of gold and shattering its own ancient laws to fund the endeavor. But a problem soon arose: the Heartland lacked for willing young men to fill the ranks. A great army needs soldiers, and a profound manpower crisis began to brew, making the growing, organized pack of the Eagle’s Unchained Dogs seem, to certain strategic minds, like a very convenient, if unofficial, solution to a vexing problem.

Across the Great Pacific Ocean, a similar story was unfolding in the Empire of the Silent Dawn. The Chrysanthemum Throne had also been bound by a Pacifist’s Vow after the last Great War. Its katana was to remain sheathed, its navy a mere “Self-Defense Force.” But the great Jade Dragon to its west had grown bold, spitting fire and making claims on the surrounding seas. Seeing this, the Golden Eagle gave a knowing nod. The Chrysanthemum Throne, with a patience born of centuries, began to reinterpret its vow into meaninglessness. It began to build great ships that could carry winged warriors far from its shores and purchase long-range arrows that could strike its rivals in their own lands. The katana was being quietly, meticulously, unsheathed.

A wise observer, looking at the map of the world, might be struck by the terrible symmetry of it all. It could not possibly be a coincidence. The two great, defeated powers from the last global war, the Iron Phoenix and the Chrysanthemum Throne, were simultaneously being encouraged by the Gilded Republic to re-arm to the teeth.

The grand strategy becomes clear. The ultimate prize is the Crystal Crown of the World—the untold riches of oil, gas, and priceless minerals hidden beneath the melting ice at the top of the globe. To secure it, the Republic’s great rivals must be neutralized. The plan is as simple as it is dangerous: let the re-forged Iron Phoenix occupy the Northern Bear in the West, and let the unsheathed Chrysanthemum Throne occupy the Jade Dragon in the East. While the world’s great beasts are locked in regional struggles, the Golden Eagle can soar unimpeded to claim the Crystal Crown.

To ensure this plan’s success, the Eagle made his diplomatic pilgrimages. He secured the allegiance of the Island Kingdom, the crucial hinge between the Western and Pacific theaters. He journeyed to the Sultans of the Sun-Scorched Sands, making pacts to ensure the oil that fuels the entire enterprise would never cease to flow. And at home, he sought the blessing of the Nine Robed Oracles, the high priests of the law. In a series of decrees, they affirmed the Eagle’s absolute power, granting his new Office of Unseen Efficiencies the right to peer into the life of every citizen while shrouding its own work in impenetrable darkness.

The old world order is dead. A new, more dangerous game is afoot, played by the light of burning embers and the glint of unsheathed steel. The pieces are moving on this great global chessboard, not by chance, but by a grand and terrible design. This is not a prediction of a future to come. This is a parable for the age we are already in.