Asia (Gallerra)

Before the Deconstruction that put supervillains in command of nearly every land of Earth, Asia was the largest continent in the world, and home to a great diversity of cultures and languages. After the Deconstruction, that hasn't changed, but like elsewhere in Gallerra the people of Asia are now the subjects of villainous superpowered cressarchs who exploit them to satisfy their own vices and velleities. Parts of the continent remain much as they were before the cressarchs took control, their oppressive governments having great effect on the citizens' lives but little on the landscape. Others, however, have been drastically changed to comport to the villains' themes and whims. In some parts of Asia—China's Tarim Basin and a few small areas of Kazakhstan—space itself was warped and expanded by one villain's powers, creating fersive regions with a greater interior area than is apparent from their outer dimensions.

History

Both the beginning and the end of the Deconstruction arguably took place in Asia. The Deconstruction kicked off with a ploy by the Chinese supervillain Ten Thousand Years to take over his home nation, and several neighboring lands as well. The villain's plan was foiled, but not without the efforts of superheroes from all over the world—and the distraction and the drain of resources left the rest of the world with weakened defenses. Unfortunately, a supervillain from Denmark, Overkill, had, independently of Ten Thousand Years, long been plotting and laying the groundwork for his own scheme of conquest, his target being the United States of America—and his carefully prepared plans were put into play at almost the same time, not coming to light until after most of the major heroes had already traveled to China to thwart Ten Thousand Years. Heroes opposed Overkill as well, but weakened from their recent battle with Ten Thousand Years they were not a match for the Danish villain's power and the multiple layers of contigencies he'd built into his strategies. Overkill was triumphant, and the heroes' means were further depleted, opening the door for other villains all over the world to take advantage of their nemeses' weakness and seize power themselves. Thus the Deconstruction began, but it would have been unlikely to have happened had Ten Thousand Years not set it off... while Overkill himself would be loath to admit it, his gambit would almost certainly have failed had the Chinese villain not paved the way.

Over the next twelve years, in Asia as in the rest of the world, other villains exploited the situation to lay claim to territories of their own. The first to do so in Asia after Overkill's victory was the Bonemaster, who claimed dominion over most of northern India, but his reign was short-lived; the world's heroes may not have had their former strength, but they were not entirely impotent, and they managed to overthrow this would-be cressarch. They had more mixed success against the next such threat, a supervillain team called the Zodiac who set their ambitious sights on dividing between themselves all of East Asia and some adjacent areas as well. Due to a combination of infighting and some resistance from the remaining heroes, the Zodiac took less territory than they'd wished for, and not all its members ended up with lasting cressarchies of their own; three did—the Ox, the Rooster, and the Snake—but most of the others either were killed or imprisoned or had to settle for serving one of their former colleagues, and one, the Goat, actually defected and joined the heroes in fighting against the cressarchs. Then, while Asia's superheroes were still licking their wounds from fighting the Zodiac, the villainess Baba Yaga cemented control over much of western Siberia.

With these villains' victories, the floodgates were open; there was little to stand in the way of other venturous villains following suit. And so, nation after nation fell to supervillains as the heroes first fought and then fell back to the remaining lands. And as the Deconstruction could be said to have begun in Asia, so too here it ended. The last nation to succumb to a supervillain was Singapore, which in 2004 was vanquished by the Goldsmith, who renamed the island country Pulau Emas and made it into the newest cressarchy. Since then, there has been some shifting of borders due to skirmishes between cressarchs, but no cressarchs have been overthrown, in Asia or elsewhere. Still, the remaining heroes have not given up hope, and there are still those who resist the cressarchs' rules, working to curb some of their worst excesses and still aspiring eventually to put an end their regimes and free the people of Asia and elsewhere from their villainous yokes.

Regions of Asia

Since Asia covers such a large area, it has long been common to divide it into several regions along geographical and cultural lines. As states were divided and recombined during the Reconstruction and people were relocated, some of the cultural differences between these regions, already fuzzy, further blurred. Still, the same regions are often referred to as before the Deconstruction, even if they're now even more poorly defined than they were before: North Asia, or Siberia, comprising what before the Deconstruction was the Asian part of Russia; Southeast Asia, comprising the Indochinese Peninsula and the Indo-Australian Archipelago; East Asia, the eastern part of the continent between North and Southeast Asia; South Asia, mainly made up of the Indian subcontinent; West Asia, including Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, and adjoining areas; and Central Asia, a landlocked region of mountains, deserts, and steppes.

Before the Deconstruction, several of these areas were dominated by a single large nation. North Asia lay entirely within Russia, while China made up most of the area of East Asia, India of South Asia, and, to a lesser extent, Kazakhstan of Central Asia. Now, however, with the redrawing of borders, no cressarchy covers more than half of any of these regions. Furthermore, the conventional contours for some of the regions have been slightly altered to better align with the new national borders. The conventional line between North and Central Asia is slightly farther north now to encompass the entirety of Zhanga Fessalia, which according to the old regional definitions would each have spanned both subregions. Outer Manchuria, once claimed by Russia and so part of North Asia, now has been reunited by the Rooster with Inner Manchuria and is considered part of East Asia. Central Asia has been expanded significantly to the east at the expense of East and South Asia, while the latter has also lost some ground to West Asia and Southeast Asia to the east and west. Arbitrary as these subcontinental demarcations are, they continue to be in common use in their modified form.

Cressarchies

Immediately before the Deconstruction, Asia was the home of just under fifty generally recognized countries, some of which lay partially in Europe, Africa, or Oceania. As nations fell to the cressarchs and the political world was rewrought, some nations were divided between different cressarchs, while other nations, or parts of nations, were united under the same conqueror. In the end, the number of sovereign states in Asia was greater after the Deconstruction than before; while some of the smaller nations were combined or absorbed by neighboring territories, this was more than offset by the splitting of others. In particular, Asia's largest nations, Russia, China, India, and Kazakhstan, were each partitioned among several cressarchies in the Deconstruction, as were the archipelago nations of Indonesia, Japan, and the Philippines. On the other hand, there are fewer transcontinental nations now than before the Deconstruction, with only Iliestan undisputedly straddling the conventional border between Europe and Asia, and no Asian cressarchy including significant territory in Africa or Oceania. Technically, the island cressarchy of Tukughaasikh includes territory that before the Deconstruction belonged to nations on two continents—most of its islands were contained in the U.S. state of Alaska in North America, but a few of them, the Commander Islands, were part of the Russian Kamchatka Krai in Asia—and therefore could perhaps be considered a transcontinental nation. However, despite the Commander Islands' prior pertinence, post-Deconstruction the entire cressarchy is generally considered to be North American, when it's considered at all. (Despite this, Tukughaasikh is included in the table below for completeness.)

A table of the cressarchies of Asia follows. The names in this table are those most commonly used in the English-speaking world; the names that the cressarchs and the cressarchies go by in their native languages may be different. In the pre-Deconstruction states column, italics indicate that only part of the listed nation is contained in the cressarchy in question; nations in roman type are completely included within the single cressarchy. Very small parts of pre-Deconstruction nations that pertain to a different cressarchy than the rest of the nation are not necessarily acknowledged in the table; for instance, while technically Kalimantan claims the islands of Mapun, Sibutu, and Sitangkai, all of which were formerly part of the Philippines, these have a combined area of only about 1,259 km²—about 0.4% of the area of the erstwhile Philippines, and 0.5% of the area of Kalimantan—and so the Philippines is not listed among the pre-Deconstruction states encompassed by Kalimantan. Note also that most of the areas and populations are approximations, especially the latter; the borders between cressarchies are not necessarily well defined, and few cressarchs have bothered to carry out censuses.

Name	Cressarch(s)	Capital	Area in km2	Population	Pre-Deconstruction States
Acrisia	Synchrony	Iconium	585,000	6,500,000	Turkey
Alamut	The Roc	Tehran	240,500	9,400,000	Iran
Alcarazat	The Alchemist	Sanaa	672,000	37,000,000	Oman, Yemen
Almaskune	The Phantasm	Kyzylorda	796,000	4,200,000	Kazakhstan
Almudunu	Mr. Metro	Uzma	422,000	15,000,000	Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates
Baikalia	The Generator	Severny Irkutsk	283,000	700,000	Russia
Baksaran	Stewpot	Molaleng	458,000	57,400,000	Myanmar, Thailand
Bimdemana	King Fleshless	Sarmorda	358,000	40,000,000	Iran, Pakistan
Cagau	Lady Fingers	Zamborangya City	180,459	49,000,000	Philippines
Chishimado	Quincunx	Asahikawa	83,424	5,900,000	Japan
Chouguo	The Ox	Nanning	1,840,000	270,000,000	China
Cyprus	Anemone	Nicosia	9,251	890,000	Cyprus
Dodaeru	Azazel	Panden	294,551	116,000,000	Japan
Emelyatia	The Fool	Magadan	2,660,000	3,200,000	Russia
Enem Uqam	The Starcaller	Aja Abada	339,000	106,000,000	Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
Evemyr	Tunguska	Norilsk	2,568,000	5,900,000	Russia
Gandaksayana	Ampersand	Gandaksayana	2,755	7,000,000	China
Gerelia	The Lucent Lama	Yakutsk	3,018,000	5,800,000	Russia
Granny's Garden	Granny Greenthumb	Jasil Qala	260,500	11,500,000	Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan
Gumyurdy	Sandcastle	Täze Mary	690,000	15,400,000	Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
Hahastan	Mr. Fun	Hahakent	102 (3,403)	2,300,000	Kazakhstan
Hamadia	Blue Hat	Aftiriyadhi	1,991,000	36,000,000	Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
Hellpit	The Foul One	Zerethron	61,000	2,300,000	Georgia
Huglia	The Looking Glass	Calcutta	334,000	122,000,000	India, Nepal
Iliestan	The Silver Talon	Atyrau	463,000	3,000,000	Kazakhstan
Jediel	Drillbit	Manila	99,702	57,500,000	Philippines
Kaifutu	Otakemaru	Kotoyohara	72,492	1,800,000	Russia
Kaigoku	Ojagani	Boushi	4,642	1,600,000	Japan
Kalimantan	The Penunggu	Samarinda	249,427	21,000,000	Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia
Kamchatka	Eruption	Kronotsgrad	246,500	640,000	Russia
Kashiria	The Blessing, the Mongrel, Shahrazad	Shahr-e-Kashmir	1,550,000	317,000,000	Afghanistan, China, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
Lidao	Spectacle	Xinbei	36,197	22,000,000	Taiwan
Longquoc	Vua Long	Hailong	287,000	55,500,000	Laos, Viet Nam
Maratha	The Nagini	Pune	1,278,000	480,000,000	India
Murubida	Ninsianna	New Ur	672,000	6,100,000	Iran, Iraq, Kuwait
Myanthaima	The Maskmaker	Kota Bharu	258,000	30,000,000	Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand
Ña Sha	The Ontologue	Inner Bangalore	634,000	270,000,000	India, Sri Lanka
Otravnina	Molotoxin	Yaderevnya	66,600	33,300	Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan
Pagan	The Presence	Dagon	410,000	35,000,000	Myanmar
Praversadesh	Monsoon	Dhaka	639,000	300,000,000	Bangladesh, India, Myanmar
Probolia	The Prelate	Jerusalem	144,000	18,000,000	Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Palestine
Pulau Emas	The Goldsmith	Pulau Emas	735	5,800,000	Singapore
Qaynaciya	Mudbeater	Baku	121,000	10,500,000	Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran
Qedimi	Primeval	Kash	877,000 (2,402,000)	5,105,000	China
Qiongzhou	The Gourmand	Yaxian	35,191	10,000,000	China
Samhan	Merciful	Incheon	220,901	79,000,000	North Korea, South Korea
Şigelia	The Wheelspeaker	Maku	200,000	17,500,000	Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey
Selenia	The Moon Master	Agaria	782,500	2,000,000	Maldives, Mongolia
Sesuka	The Futurist	Banda City	388,000	64,000,000	Indonesia, Timor-Leste
Shadukam	Al-Dimiryat	Juherabad	322,000	45,000,000	Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey
Sheksiz	Madame Nonesogreat	Bakanas	33,500 (401,000)	4,000,000	Kazakhstan
Siguo	The Snake	Shanghai	1,438,000	200,000,000	China
Sumeru	The Wonderworker	Mükiang	2,145,000	15,000,000	Bhutan, China
Tamradesh	Doctor Span	Phnom Penh	308,000	40,000,000	Cambodia, Viet Nam
Telopulo	Retribution	Anagolaya	20,476	1,400,000	Philippines
Tridevyat	Baba Yaga	Obgorod	3,483,000	9,600,000	Russia
Tukughaasikh	Freezerburn	Adak	6,821	8,000	Russia, United States of America
Ufurkani	The Mogul	Karachi	1,046,000	395,000,000	India, Pakistan
Vanarbhumi	Raj-Utan	Pamauus	482,287	59,000,000	Indonesia
Vazraka	The Khaganum	New Xanadu	1,138,000	60,000,000	Afghanistan, Iran
Yeke Ulus	Hordemistress	Bugat	1,825,000	150,000,000	China, Mongolia
Yonodon	Lucky Linsang	Sadavan	154,000	33,500,000	Laos, Viet Nam
Youguo	The Rooster	Haishenwai	2,094,000	200,000,000	China, Russia
Zhanga Fessalia	The Centaur	Ürümqi	2,255,000	98,000,000	China, Kazakhstan, Russia

Heroes

Fortunately, Asia does have its share of superheroes trying to resist the cressarchs' rule. Thus far they have not managed to bring any of the cressarchs down, but they still have their sights set toward that goal, and in the meantime do what they can to mitigate the cressarchs' cruelty. Some of the best known and most influential superheroes active primarily in Asia are listed below.

Equality

Equality (Равноправность in the original Russian) is a mental construct that exists within the mind of the supervillain Baba Yaga, but has been given her own independent consciousness and agency by the Greek heroine Endymia. Drawing from her host's own powers, she can project herself to distant locations and act far from her host's physical location.

Extravaganza

This ostentatious heroine makes it her mission to disrupt the cressarchs' plans in the most theatrical, flamboyant, (often literally) explosive manner possible. While she often receives criticism from other heroes for prioritizing showmanship over substance and putting time and effort into glitz and grandstanding that could better be spent elsewhere, the vexation she causes the cressarchs may be not entirely without value.

Funtun

A faceless entity apparently composed of several people fused together in a strange accident, Funtun (混沌) wanders Asia—and occasionally beyond—causing chaos and confusion, though chaos and confusion that always works in favor of other superheroes and against the cressarchs. They have powers related to dance and song—the latter despite their lack of a mouth.

Interface

More so than most superheroes, Interface works directly with the common people, inciting them to work their own rebellions against the cressarchs. She is especially active in the most technologically advanced cressarchies, and has found ways to use their own technologies against them, tapping into their existing networks and infrastructures and manifesting herself through them.

The Ivory Dragon

A native of the highlands of Tibet, the Ivory Dragon before the Deconstruction supported the movement to secure that land's independence from China, even as she fought supervillains in other lands. Now, most of Tibet has been claimed by the Wonderworker—except its western end, which has become part of Kashiria—and the Ivory Dragon still longs to liberate her homeland, but usually finds that there is greater need of her powers elsewhere.

Kudzu

Kudzu is a hero with powers over plants, and who uses that power to fight the cressarchs, tearing down their monuments, palaces, and official edifices—though he is careful to contain the destruction and not damage historical buildings or infrastructure important to the innocent populace. The villainess called the Penunggu, who has similar powers, has tried to recruit him to her cause, but without success.

The Locust

The Locust not only has command over insects and certain other arthropods, but also has the ability to turn himself into a swarm of such creatures—not, despite his code name, necessarily locusts, though that is a favorite form he frequently uses. While the two never met before the Deconstruction, post-Deconstruction Kudzu and the Locust have become close friends, and often work together.

Melt

Given his powers from his experience as an unwilling test subject of the supervillain scientist Ampersand, Melt has the ability to turn himself into a liquid form—and later developed the ability to temporarily liquefy other objects as well. While he does sometimes work on his own, and makes creative use of his powers, he is also eager to help out other superheroes on their endeavors.

Olonkhohut

Originating in Siberia but since ranging far beyond to lend his aid wherever it is most needed, Olonkhohut has the unusual ability to bring events and objects into being by telling stories. Sometimes his name is translated as "The Storyteller", but this misses some important connotations, and more often his name is left in the original Sakha—and certainly it is that version of his name that he always uses himself.

The Pangolin

Before the Deconstruction, the Pangolin mostly concerned himself with protecting the natural world, fighting poachers and polluters and those who would despoil or otherwise harm the environment. He now sees these issues largely as symptoms of greater social and political problems, however, and, while striving to put an end to the cressarchs' power, has vowed that even if the cressarchs are overthrown he will focus more on addressing the root causes of the local wrongs he used to battle.

Shōnen and Shōujo

Though they fight separately at least as often as they do together—and when they do coöperate, it is with considerable bickering and oneupsmanship—Shōnen and Shōujo are clearly associated in some way, whether they are brother and sister, share a common origin, or have some other relationship. Both have them have diverse and apparently not wholly reliable powers, which they have given names they are prone to shouting when they use them.

The Vessel

One of the oldest and most enigmatic superheroes, the Vessel has been around at least since the 1930s and possibly much longer, and has not visibly aged since he first came to public attention. For most of that time, however, his methods and purposes were subtle and cloaked in mystery. Since the Deconstruction, he has become more openly heroic, and he now works with other superheroes and actively and obviously opposes the cressarchs' regimes.

Whisper

Whisper's amazing powers of stealth and concealment allow her to penetrate the cressarchs' defenses unseen and strike at vital but vulnerable installations and discover their plans and other things they would rather keep secret. She is often called a ninja, but this does not seem to be literally true; her abilities are part skill and part supernatural, but do not apparently stem from the practice of any form of ninjutsu (and for what it's worth she is Filipina, not Japanese).

Other supers

Not every super on Nuclearth can be easily classified as a hero or a villain, and of course not all who are generally considered supervillains are or work for cressarchs. The following are some supers active primarily in Asia who aren't unambiguous heroes but who don't serve under a cressarch and who don't hold territory of their own.

Caribou

Caribou is a warlord who purports to hold territory in much of northern Siberia. To his frustration, none of the cressarchs recognize his claims, and those who rule the areas he calls his own—Baba Yaga, the Fool, the Lucent Lama, and Tunguska—generally treat him as either a pretentious annoyance to be stamped out or a vassal with amusing delusions of grandeur to be treated with cloying patronization.

The Cobra Queen

The Cobra Queen is the head of a vast crime syndicate operating throughout most of the Indian subcontinent, and has her fingers in virtually every aspect of the criminal underworld. This puts her at odds with the ruling cressarchs, since she flouts their laws and undermines their order, but given her avarice and ruthlessness she is hardly a hero—though she has occasionally had reason to temporarily ally with one or more superheroes.

Eggstream

A notorious, if idiosyncratic, supervillain before the Deconstruction, Eggstream did not claim any territory for himself but now hires himself out as an enforcer for various cressarchs. He rarely stays with one employer for long, his tendency to go beyond his orders giving him a reputation as a loose cannon—but he can be effective enough that when one cressarch dismisses him (or even tries, so far unsuccessfully, to dispose of him), he rarely goes long without finding employment with another.

Jezebel

Though Jezebel does seem to be opposed to the cressarchs, she has proven herself too untrustworthy to really be considered a superhero. From time to time, some superheroes have teamed up with her, but always with care; she can be a useful ally while her loyalty lasts, but is quick to turn on her erstwhile associates if she sees some benefit to herself in doing so.

The Leshy

While some do consider the Leshy to be a superhero, he is capricious and temperamental enough to give most people some reservations. He does often fight against the cressarchs and spoil their plans, and has from time to time joined up with (other) superheroes to do so, but at other times he has wrought mischief on innocent people, apparently as some disproportionate retaliation for some minor offense or just out of sheer rascality.

MechaMan

Taking his name from the giant "mechas" that he pilots and apparently created, MechaMan seems more concerned with finding opportunities to use his mechas in a good fight than with worrying about what it is he's fighting for. At times MechaMan has been hired by a cressarch to carry out some job for them, but the relationship never lasts long, and at other times he has been temporarily convinced by some superhero to fight against the cressarchs.

Potbelly

Potbelly is a charismatic super whose modus operandi is to approach community leaders and offer them help against the cressarchs' oppression—in exchange for a sizeable payment. While in the short term his aid may appear useful, he has little care for the long-term fate of those he "helps", and in the long term they end up worse off than they had been before. Word has spread about Potbelly's perfidity, but he always manages to find new marks who haven't heard of him—or who are desperate enough to take a chance on him anyway.

The Raptor

An infamous superpowered robber active mostly in Central Asia, the Raptor is not above thieving from the cressarchs themselves. Because of this, several cressarchs have put hefty prices on the Raptor's head, but so far nobody has managed to bring the Raptor in and collect the reward. There are rumors that the Raptor has a secret lair high in the mountains somewhere, the Raptor's Nest, where she keeps a huge hoard of collected treasures—but, again, no one has yet managed to find it.

Sweet Tooth

A candy-themed supervillain more formidable and dangerous than one might expect from his motif, Sweet Tooth seems to harbor no political ambitions, but is content to continue operating much as he did before the Deconstruction, using his abilities to extort cities and communities for money and power. Of course, this puts him at odds with the cressarchs who rule over the locations he targets, but he always moves on before the heat grows too great.