Aztlan
The puppet government of Aztechnology. Most nations have powerful megacorps attached, but it's the other way around with the Azzies -- Aztechnology has a nation attached to it. Relentlessly expansionist, it spans from Austin to Panama, and it's not afraid to broadcast a live vivisection of a dragon on tridcast. The only geopolitical entity known to have developed and deployed anti-dragon weapons capable of killing a great dragon. Powerful enough in their own territory to have successfully banned Catholicism in half of Latin America and mandated a new state religion.
Currently, Aztlan is going full tilt into the 2080s, high on everyone’s favorability chart and poised to take whatever actions the board of Aztechnology deems necessary. Ghostwalker has not yet succeeded in re-exiling them from Denver, and the CAS seems poised to be stronger than it has ever been, meaning activities at the northern border will be worth watching.
History
In 2011, as ORO (you know them as Aztechnology) continued to buy and threaten ever-increasing numbers of Central American government officials, the VITAS epidemic hit. The Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome spread through Mexico and Central America like wildfire, and the governments were ill-equipped to handle the plague. ORO, however, was on hand to extend aid. The former drug lords gave significant humanitarian aid to all of central America, and perhaps more importantly, they provided strong, visible leadership. In 2012, as the Awakening was getting ready to hap- pen, Mexico became a failed state when its government collapsed. ORO once again came to the rescue. They provided infrastructure and temporary stability for Mexico over the next four years. In 2015, ORO helped Mexico get back on its feet by holding nationwide elections to replace the failed government. ORO even went as far as to provide all of Mexico with voting machines produced by them and also overseen by ORO staff. And I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but as a result, the ORO-backed Aztlán Party won the election. The new leadership wasted no time in adopting and championing what they called the Aztec revival movement, rebranding as a powerful and proud people, and renaming the country Aztlan to create distance from the failed state and to inspire its citizens with powerful rituals and history. So you see, by design, Aztlan has never not been bought and paid for. ORO spent billions over the next seven years helping Aztlan build teocallis or temples that were vital to the Aztec Revival, while also upgrading Aztlan’s infrastructure and intelligence operations, and investing heavily in making Aztlan’s military a force to be reckoned with.
Riding high on public approval in 2022, ORO moved its corporate headquarters to Mexico City, which it helped rebrand into Tenochtitlán. In order to ride the continuing wave of Aztlaner pride and to distance itself from the bad PR of its drug cartel beginnings, ORO re- named itself Aztechnology. In 2029, when much of the older infrastructure of Tenochtitlán was destroyed in an earthquake, Aztechnology was quick to step in and rebuild its home city with structures much more to its liking. From ’29 to the mid 2040s, Aztlan, backed by Aztechnology, continued to steal from companies within its borders, and invite and invade so that an ever-growing number of Central American nations joined Aztlan’s empire. Aztlan even pushed into Texas, claiming everything south of Austin, and then claimed San Diego from the California Free State. In March 2041, under orders from Aztechnology, Aztlan declared the Roman Catholic Church to be a revolutionary organization and outlawed the practice of Catholicism, savagely prosecuting those who remained true to those beliefs. The Catholic Church has often had a mixed reputation, at best, on the international stage, but in many parts of Latin America, the Church has been the staging ground for revolution, protest, and liberation movements. This, along with the growth of a rather troubling spirituality, was why the Aztechnology folks couldn’t let the Catholics continue to do their thing.
In 2044, Aztechnology decided it did not want to share Aztlan with any foreign corporations and had Aztlan pass a law nationalizing nearly all foreign businesses within Aztlan’s borders, saying they were unfairly exploiting the Aztlaner people. Armed Azzie soldiers broke down doors to corporate facilities and forced employees out onto the streets, repatriating all goods, technology, and other assets to Aztechnology. This included assets of very large AAA extraterritorial megacorporations. By 2045, Aztlan had gobbled up all remaining countries in Central America’s mainland. This was controversial on the world stage but tremendously popular within Aztlan. The Corporate Court ordered Aztechnology to cease and desist, but to no avail. So the Corporate Court initiated Operation: Reciprocity, a surgical strike to the Aztlaner/Aztechnology military base in Ensenada. There was a lot of damage, to be sure, but the message it sent was greater. The other AAAs made it clear that if the Azzies kept this up, there would be more where that came from, and they could expect it all to rain down on them if Aztechnology didn’t shape up. Aztechnology agreed to terms and signed the Veracruz Settlement, ending hostilities. As part of that process, Aztlan got to keep almost all of what it gained by nationalizing the other corp assets, aside from fairly trivial fines and a promise not to be so bad again. Aztechnology went home and spun this as a tale of triumph and pride for the home team. In 2051, a dragon of questionable age and power named Pobre began a rebellion against Aztlaner rule in the Yucatán Peninsula. It wasn’t until 2061 that Aztlan decided to make a show of strength and deal decisively with the rebels that had been making noise in that part of the nation. The Azzies slashed and burned the Yucatán to ferret out the rebels, but nature fought back in the form of earthquakes and tsunamis. Finally, on June 5, 2064, Aztlan and Pobre came to a truce and were set to sign a treaty establishing the Yucatán as a semi-sovereign state with Pobre as its head. CEO of Aztechnology, Juan Atzcapotzalco and the unorthodox Aztlaner shaman Quauhtlatoa helped broker the deal. Unfortunately, a Yucatán rebel rushed the signing and detonated a bomb, killing Juan Atzcapotzalco and the shaman Quauhtlatoa on live trideo. There was a great deal of confusion on how a bomb made it past security until the dragon Pobre used magic to discover the truth, which he claimed implicated the feathered serpent Dzitbalchén. Later that year. an Aztechnology task force, with the help of Pobre (who was now governor of the Yucatán), hunted down and captured Dzitbalchén.
Enrico Silva was elected as Aztlan’s president. In order to exert its power and stretch its wings once more, Aztlan refocused its energy on expansion and set its sight south. Unfortunately, South America did not prove an easy target, so they were unable to push past Bogotá further into Amazonia. Aztechnology began to subvert the city government, as well as the populace, against Amazonia, and eventually began to purposefully corrupt the surrounding Awakened rainforest. Once they did that, Amazonia had had enough. After many half-hearted attempts to cease hostilities, Amazonia and Aztlan formally went to war in November 2072. They fought a brutal dirty war for two years, culminating in the Battle of Bogotá. The war ended in ’74, mainly cuz the Azzies won the PR battle. They won Bogotá and Cali, but during the war, the great dragon Sirrurg attacked civilian targets, military targets, cities, and food supplies equally. The war crimes of Sirrurg would be avenged, but at the end of the war, eighty percent of Azzie food production had been crippled, and their military was in poor shape. They managed to leverage global sympathy for starving Aztlaner children with the world’s distrust for dragons, though.
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