Lets Look At the Alternate History of Homefront: The Revolution

A couple days ago, Deep Silver and Dambuster Studios released the official trailer for Homefront: The Revolution. For those who don't know, the series began with the first-person shooter Homefront, which featured a near future dystopia where North Korea occupied most of the United States. The new game, however, is taking the story in an entirely new direction and has created an alternate history. According to the press release:

"The core premise of Homefront - an occupation on American soil - remains unchanged," said Hasit Zala, Game Director at Dambuster Studios. "But we have created a brand new fiction that offers a very different interpretation of how we got there."

We learn about this new fiction from this mockumentary and this timeline where you need to enter your age to get in. The point of divergence seems to be that North Korea is decisively defeated in the Korean War, which removes the communists and installs a democratic capitalist government. Why this doesn't end with North Korea being reunited with South Korea is anyone's guess. There are other changes as well, for example, the Soviets landing men on the Moon first (and surviving into the 21st century) and John McCain being elected president in 2008.

The true alternate history, however, is that "Steve Jobs" was born in North Korea. He ended up creating revolutionary technology, formed the powerful APEX Corporation and devised a theory about using technology to bring about peace, stability and all that jazz. After he died, his son takes over the company, gets elected Premier of North Korea and essentially merges the state and corporation into one entity. Desptie its size, North Korea is pretty much a global superpower at this point.

Meanwhile the United States becomes increasingly dependent on technology and financial assistance from North Korea, especially with its seemingly endless war in the Middle East (which includes a nuclear attack on Riyadh in 2016). Sadly the United States economy tanks and it is unable to pay its debt to the North Koreans. The Premier acts and shuts down all the technology the United States bought from Apex. The first troops to arrive come with humanitarian aide, but then the real occupation begins.

And if you look at the above picture, you can see an airship, because how else will people tell this is an alternate history without an airship?

So yeah this still is a North Korea wankfest like the first Homefront game, just without the communism. In fact, don't you guys get the feeling that the North Korea in this timeline is just an evil South Korea? South Korea in our timeline is already a major technology hub and dominated by massive conglomerates that influence the government. Isn't that what APEX is? Was the bad guy always supposed to be South Korea or a United Korea, but they changed it at the last minute so as to not to upset a potential market, like they did in the remake to Red Dawn? Or did they just really want North Korea to be the bad guys, regardless of how little sense that made? I'm going with the latter actually.

While I obviously haven't played the game (and probably never will) I will say that I am not impressed at all by the alternate history. It turns North Korea into an evil South Korea and still stacks the deck in their favor to allow them to invade and occupy a nation over 80 times its size  (I checked). Maybe the gameplay will make Homefront: The Revolution worth it, but the world-building is just awful.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Map Monday: Most Glorious Union of the Korean Peoples by Bruce Munro

This Map Monday was difficult, not because of a lack of good maps, but because of an over abundance of them. I really found it difficult to parse it down to just one featured map and then a few honorable mentions. Still after a lot of fretting I finally decided on "Most Glorious of the Korean Peoples" by Bruce Munro:

Also known as "Better Korea" I think I ended up picking this map because of the news of the Homefront sequel and someone reminding me of the Red Dawn remake recently. In both universes, North Korea manages to invade the United States and hilarity ensues. The premise is that a country that can barely manage to feed its population enough prevent them from resorting to cannibalism is somehow able to transport and supply enough of its military across the largest ocean on Earth to take on the world's sole superpower with its modern, battle-hardened military, nuclear stockpile and a heavily armed civilian population. Such an idea can only be politely be described as idiotic.

Yes I know Homefront is set in a dystopic future and in the original draft of Red Dawn the North Koreans were meant to be Chinese, but that doesn't make it less implausible. The map above, however, is just a tad more plausible. Yes it is a wank, but its a more believable wank then the franchises mentioned above even if it does require a nuclear war to get North Korea some more territory. The point of divergence is set in a world where South Korea started the Korean War and the US failed to get them international support when things turned south (hehe). Having not read many Korean War alternate histories, its nice to get a fresh point of divergence, even if the broader outcome remains unlikely.

So there you go, because some people couldn't stop talking about Best Korea, this is the map I chose. Honorable mentions this week go to Provincias Unidas del Rio de la Plata by Nanwe, The Imperial Commonwealth by False Dmitri and a map of a victorious Islamic State in Iraq and Syria by ColeMercury. If you want to submit a map for consideration for the next Map Monday, email me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com with your map attached and a brief description in the body of the email.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.