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Date: 6 May 2052 - 5 February 2053 Archived: 7 December 2067

The journal of Tu Ah Zheng, a 15 year old girl from the domed city of Jingding. Her journal accounts the Chinese Strife from her upper-middle class perspective in a relatively safe city. Note that it is largely incomplete due to missing pages.

Translation available:

6 May 2052 Father said I should no longer use the internet as the warlords have "seized the servers". I'll need to physically write now; good thing I've been practising my writing recently otherwise I would have forgotten, much like my friends. 8 May 2052

School set up their own Server-Generator system, though I'm not sure how legal it is now. We were under Sun Qirui's protection for a while but his militia fought with Cao Chun. Father says it's important to always stay updated, but so much changes so quickly it's hard to keep up.  17 July 2052

Mother got punched accidentally today at the supermarket. Punched! There was a sort of skirmish after some of Cao Chun's soldiers came into the supermarket. Mother said they stole food, claiming it was "town tax", and she got caught in the middle of the fight after some residents protested. She didn't tell me what happened to them after it ended. 31 July 2052

The soldiers shut down the school's Server-Generator system so we have to use these old musty textbooks now. They smell nothing like I've smelt before! Liang joked about them being better suited as kindle than learning material. He's rather cute... 1 August 2052

Mai came to school late today. She was in tears. Cao Chun’s soldiers shot her neighbour right in front of their house. Says she doesn't know what he did wrong but he was always a lovely old man. Poor thing probably didn't deserve it. 27 September 2052

We got let out of school early today! Ever since the soldiers started patrolling the corridors kids have been getting rebellious. Liang thinks one of them might have done something. We went down to the old tea shop but they were closed! Something about eviction for tax avoidance. Cao Chun has been taxing an awful lot lately. 30 October 2052

Oh my god, I can hardly write this. Apparently there was a riot in the market after another shop got seized for 'tax avoidance', and the soldiers just killed them all! Nuo was there, and her mother and her just managed to escape. God, I feel bad for her, and those other people! 13 December 2052

Some soldiers came to the door today before I woke up. They told mother that I’m no longer allowed to attend school as it 'drained the economy' and 'distracted children'. I'm happy I don't need to go, but Father doesn't seem to impressed. 2 February 2053

Went to the history museum with Liang and just as we were leaving we saw the blue helmet men from TV drive by. Liang thinks they'll make us go back to school. 4 February 2053 Father tells me they're Peacekeepers from the United Nations. Says they'll bring back the internet and even unite our city with the neighbouring ones. 12 March 2053 We’ve been seeing a lot more UN Peacekeepers about town recently, even some official looking men in suits! Our internet came back on! I kinda forgot about my journal. Anyway, apparently my parents have to vote for something today, I think the UN is setting up something new…

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Date: 2 September 2051 Archived: 4 July 2067

A page from the digital Public Dossier published by the Royal Institute of British Architects, summarising five of the mid-21st Century’s most prominent architectural styles. It features the city of Jingding as an example of Bastionism.

[fine-gov-blog]

Date: 16 May 2054 Archived: 3 July 2067

A cerebral device screenshot of the BBC news story published with the UN’s unveiling of their plans for Chinese division. Full Transcript available: 1 hour ago | Asia | Chinese Strife

United Nations unveils plans mapping division of the former superpower, which collapsed into disorder two years ago. 

25 delegates representing over 1.33 billion people attended talks in Seoul, at the UN Social Commission for Asia’s (UNSCA) Interim Headquarters.

The delegation included General Sun Qirui, who briefly administered much of the Hubei region of central China after the nation fell.

Representatives from Kazakhstan and East Mongolia, both implicated in the Urquhart Inquiry, were also present. The Inquiry, published a few months ago, detailed the seizure of ancestral territory whilst the strife was occurring.

The remainder of former-China was governed by various regional power-figures such as industrial magnates Hai Heng Zhang and Guanting Yu. Other pseudo-rulers included Admiral Ru Yeung and Shengdu Mayor Fang Bai.

More than 17 million people were killed in the skirmishes that occurred in the first months of the strife, which started on 4 May 2052. The United Nations established a presence in the region in 2053 after 17 separate humanitarian crises were declared. The UNSCA has since stepped in to aid various factions in administration of their territories.

UN Secretary-General Maren Eriksen made a statement earlier this year, claiming that it was “the most severe crisis that has ever affected this region.” The speech was made in the UNSCA Interim Headquarters in the Myung-Global Building of central Seoul.

The proposal from the UN divides the area of former-China into 22 distinct regions, after months of deliberation of existing language, ethnicity, religion, and cultural borders. However, the UNSCA insists that after the borders are in place “these twenty-two flourishing new nations are free to govern as they please,” taking a backseat on administration.

The remaining region of Beijing and Heijin has been officially quarantined due to hazardous atmosphere.

This January, the World Health Organisation published a 34-page report on the Tian Vascular Agent that killed more than 41 million citizens of Beijing. It was the discharge of the agent into Beijing’s skies that deposed the Communist Party of China and threw the nation into disorder.

What is the Tian Vascular Agent?

- Causes nausea, shortness-of-breath, and eventual death by dermal exsanguination (loss of blood via pores) over the course of six hours. 

- The chemical agent was analysed by the World Health Organisation in an attempt to clear Beijing of the agent 

- A countermeasure for the effects of agent has yet to be discovered 

US Secretary of State Beckett Solomon said that this was the best course of action for China, and Asia as a whole. 

“China has been a unified nation for as long as history can remember. This can only spell bad news for the citizens of the original People’s Republic of China,” one woman, Bo Jia Chong of the new Huang He nation, told Reuters.

A man, Zhou, from the southern region of Fujian, said: “the fall of the old regime has allowed many different factions to bloom in its place. I welcome this new age of diversity on the Chinese continent.”

[fine-gov-blog]

Date: 4 October 2054 Archived: 24 December 2066

Page 74-3 of the contingency report created by F.I.N.E during the resolution of the Chinese Strife, showing the 19 new nations and 2 extended ones.

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Date: 30 August 2051 Archived: 2 November 2066

A photograph by the RIBA of the domed city of Jingding in the Han Cooperative, to protect its occupants from climate disasters in the growing Gobi Desert.

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Date: 9 September 2053 Archived: 7 August 2066

A photograph taken on the WHO Expedition into Beijing, of the Forbidden Palace. It is assumed that analogue was used as digital could not survive the environment.

[fine-gov-blog]

Date: 1 January 2054 Archived: 6 June 2066

World Health Organization partial dossier on the logs of Dr. Lawrence G. Morrison in his study of the Tian Vascular Agent in Beijing. Full Transcript of recordable data available here: Dr. Morrison’s Audio logs of study into unknown chemical weapon. Codenamed: TVA 28 August 2043 Day one of field operations. I’m leading the crew through the southern side of DaXing County tomorrow. Preliminary tests indicate any physical contact with the air-borne agent results in contamination of the patient. For this reason Level A+ Hazmat suits are to be utilised at all times when entering the unofficial quarantine zone. 30 August 2043 Yesterdays expedition was a great success. While the crew and I weren’t expecting quite so many corpses, we made a startling discovery! Accounts from various civilian towns were true: the atmosphere is actually carpeted with a hazy red mist. Field tests showed that this was oxyhaemoglobin so light in density that it was able to intermingle with Beijing’s polluted air. This gives us clues as to the mechanism of the agent, though nothing concrete so far. [Data expunged] 5 September 2043 Further exploration into the deeper areas of Beijing has shown that there are pools of thicker, denser oxyhaemoglobin particulates in the air that make transport through these regions quite difficult. I’ve made a request for a map be drawn of these areas to allow for faster movement through the dead city. [Data expunged]  24 September 2043 After weeks of no success beyond initial findings, some executives have suggested studying on a live patient. When I announced this with the crew, many objected. They were scientists, they claimed, and not mercenaries. I reminded them of the millions that had died from this weapon, and the millions more that would, could we not find a way to reverse it. [Data expunged]

1 October 2043 Initial tests on the 20 Rhesus Macaque monkeys resulted little progress. When exposed to the agent, they simply weren’t perishing in the same way as described of humans. Some showed symptoms of suffocation, while others exhibited signs of psychosis, and raged in the test enclosure until collapsing of exhaustion. None died of exsanguination. Some of my compatriots are convinced we are testing the wrong genus; others have suggested we move to dogs or apes. I think we need to move to homo-sapiens. 8 October 2043 Some plain-clothes peacekeepers—though I’m not sure we should be calling them that anymore—brought in an elderly woman, blindfolded of course. Subject 001! Claims her name is [data expunged], and she’s from the [data expunged] region. I’m not sure how much the peacekeepers told her, but she seems prepared to die for the good of her nation. Or what’s left of it. Good on her. [Data Expunged] 17 November 2043 Subject 133 showed fantastic signs of pulling through, though he still expired at 16:40. We’ve made fantastic progress in reversing the agent, though I can’t quite seem to maintain the [data expunged] levels in the blood in Stage 8 of the reversal. It appears [data expunged] subjects with [data expunged] metabolisms are prime candidates for agent reversal, as, when exposed to the agent, they have a longer incubation period before perishing. [Data Expunged] 25 December 2043 Merry Christmas! Subject 275 has shown great progress, perhaps she may be the one. The higher-ups are expecting a report in the next month or so; the crew and I’ll need to compile something together. We just need more time, and more subjects…

[fine-gov-blog]

Date: [MONTH UNKNOWN], 2053 Archived: 3 June 2066

Handmade map created by a crew member of the World Health Organisation Beijing Expedition, detailing oxyhaemoglobin pools around the city.