Chapter 402: Contra
Iran-Contra.
An affair or an imbroglio to some.
It's also a scandal to some degree that Watergate is referenced and it becomes Irangate.
As opposed to the recent discovery that it currently is... the whole thing actually goes back as far as the 50s... with Mohammed Mosaddegh.
The Iranian prime minister at that time who was extremely popular and loved by Iranians.
British Petroleum and America didn't love him though.
Nationalizing his country's oil and not being in line with Western views got the guy ousted and replaced in a CIA-backed coup.
A new Shah of Iran took seat but only a mere puppet leader whose strings are at the mercy of the puppet masters.
Clearly, America does love lording over other countries' governance, forming grudges that will come biting back in the long run.
And sure enough, it doesn't stop there as somewhere in Nicaragua... a US-backed puppet leader was ousted by a "socialist" group called the Sandinistas.
Reagan, on his run as President, wasn't having that and saw something on a right-wing rebel group that was opposing the Sandinistas, the Contras.
This brings the Contra of the Iran-Contra into the mix.
In Reagan's eyes, these guys were freedom fighters and with the Sandanistas being opposing commies, he found himself a perfect mascot group to support.
Figuring that if the Contras won, it will be America's symbolic win against the communist Soviets.
Basically, Nicaragua became a little reenactment of the Cold War.
The Contras suddenly became "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers" in Reagan's eyes and became a full-on supporter from then on.
Turning a blind eye to what the rebel group was doing. Such as kidnapping, torture, rape, killing civilians, and even drug dealing.
All was probably fine as long as they weren't "commies" and against "commies", so tens of millions of funds were allocated to them.
Congress wasn't having it though and passed the Boland Amendment. Effectively making it so that further support for these human rights violators was considered treason.
Then again, that didn't stop the CIA, the DOD, and the "Reagan" administration from trying to find loopholes, and found one they did.
By virtue of good old Iran, who at this point had also overthrown their US-backed puppet leader, and had a good string of revenge via hostage crises.
I.e. Iran hostage crisis and the like.
Sure, it was troubling for hostaged Americans but it was an opportunity... for Contra supporters.
Reagan, after a speech about never negotiating with terrorists and contrary to an imposed arms embargo, actually negotiated arms with Iran.
Shockingly, it was a hidden, convoluted plot wherein the some of the money earned during the exchange was actually funneled to Contra.
So, it was a case of three wrongs making a right... or making more wrongs.
Sure, hostages were released but Iran got missiles for their cause, Reagan administration conspirators were skating many legalities, and Contra was being Contra.
With their penchant for drug trade for funds, well... those drugs were peddled with blind consent to the States itself and believed to be instrumental in another problem... the crack cocaine epidemic.
Making for a conspiracy and a political scandal for the history books.
This is what the Iran-Contra Affair was.
And everyone would have gotten away with it... if it wasn't for a meddling Lebanese newspaper article...
Exposing the whole thing... just this November 3rd of 1986...
Regardless, the whole world reeled!
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Now, how exactly does a prodigious, 11-year-old, entertainment business-kid like Alexander connect to this?
One can't help but ask...
Well...
All the while that Al Shiraa's article shocked and awed... Creed Chaos Systems all over the world had their interface updated.
The selection menu's denominator got an update and could only mean one thing... Creed Games' tenth game was now available.
Fittingly situated at the 10/10 spot, the game really scored perfectly when it came to timing.
With the Iran-Contra Affair in full exposure... a game called Contra actually popped up.
Without surprise, long-term Creed fans bought it with the money they'd painstakingly saved up. It's a new fun game to play, after all.
In the mix are the speculators and conspirators, bringing up an incident from earlier this year. Making whispers about Alexander the Great manipulating society to his whims once again.
Even news media looking for relevant Iran-Contra placeholders ate it up.
It didn't help that the game's figureheads looked like the famous muscle duo of the decade... bringing more attention to whatever avenue of attraction it had.
Looking further into its publicized plot... it's actually something set in the present day, where an evil Red Falcon Organization has set a base on the depths of the Amazon Jungle, in a plot to wipe out humanity.
Two commandos, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean of the Earth Marine Corp's Contra unit, an elite group of soldiers specializing in guerrilla warfare, are sent to the island to destroy the enemy forces and uncover the true nature behind this nefarious enemy.
The setting was a bit off but with Nicaragua only being 1,938 miles from the Amazon... eh... it's close enough.
The Sandinista's FSLN flag had red, didn't it? Aren't they the Red Falcon in this story?
Either way, people that wanted to find something were finding some things, even if there was nothing there.
Even that didn't seem to be enough, with the Iran-Contra trouble in the spotlight, maybe there's something to this Contra game that could shed some light on it.
The line about "the true nature behind this nefarious enemy" really got some senses tingled.
Making this run-and-gunner to be quite the point of interest... with an interesting twist where one can choose between Rambo or Commando, picking up power-ups, traversing through obstacles, and obliterating enemies along the way.
With these factors, Contra the video game was a resounding success. A hit in every sense of the word.
It even hit the sensibilities of those that were under scrutiny and those scrutinizing.
Trouble was afoot and panicked scrambling was being done... but there it was... in this disaster, profiting.
Suspicious, was it not?
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It truly was suspicious.
Which brings things back to where Alexander currently was, being suspected.
"Are you okay, Alex?" Old Sullivan asked. "It looks as though you've just gone through paragraphs and paragraphs of text inside your mind."
"I'm fine." Alexander snapped out of it. "It's just that you guys caught me off guard there. I'm not in any way liable to anything about that whole Iran-Contra thing though."
"I just named the game Contra because Contra is about contrasting and going against in the first place, which is what the gameplay is all about." He reasoned and defended. "A Nicaraguan militant group being centered in a major scandal doesn't have ownership of the terminology, I double-checked with Miss Consigliere and Mr. Legalities."
Frankly, he was more worried about Konami coming at him. As for timing it with the affair's reveal... just greedy curiosity.
Not that people will really connect the dots to that truth, just bits of it.
"Are you sure you didn't plan the whole thing? After the whole Chernobyl thing, you doing this timely coincidence for the second time is just uncanny." Old Sullivan really said in scrutiny.
"Come on, grandpa. If I really knew stuff like this, I would have profited and timed creations from every major event or disaster ever. Take that Balloonfest idiocracy of this September for example."
Alexander reasoned. "Had I known, I would have rushed that story about an old man pulling his house up with balloons but I didn't."
He reasoned a state of Ohio craziness with Up... but hey... it kind of worked.
"Hoho! Just the very fact that you thought about it is suspect enough, isn't it?" Sure enough, he was Old Sullivan, an Alex theorist through and through.
Old Man Pierce also had his own thoughts and he made it known. "Creed's overblown assumptions aside, he's unfortunately not the only one with the same idiotic thought."
"The fact that your game is making money off of it would just rub them the wrong way even more. My sources tell me that even POTUS has some grievances."
"I've only given Mr. Schwarzenneger a belated heads-up and even he wasn't that miffed about the use of his pixelated likelihood." Alexander shrugged at that.
"Reagan's the one who's in the ropes for high treason and proclaimed to his constituents that Contras are equal to people immortalized in Mount Rushmore. I'd argue that it's why I was inclined to that naming when I could have gone for Gryzor and Probotector."
Europe's versions of Contra still worked even if they were sour-inducing words, didn't they?
Alexander really had reasons for why he was never really indebted for those presidential good graces to begin with. "I'd also argue that Contra's success is from the Chaos Units' established consumer base and the fact that Marvel fans have turned coat after recent upheavals. That scandal is just unfortunate coincidence at best."
"On those notes, I'd have still made money and their conspiracy would have still been blown wide open." He did arrange for things to align. Of course, he had excuses.
"Well said, Alex. Well said." Granted, Old Sullivan really eats those excuses up with ease. "Did you hear all that, Pierce? Besides, can't those sources of yours smooth things out with the President or whatever?"
"You overestimate me." Old Man Pierce shot that down. "I'm just a retired general in an army with meritocracy and I've pretty much exhausted most merits when I drew away interests from Alexander's so-called Chaos Units. Not to mention all the favors that I had to pull for that favor you asked for about Base Miramar."
That's new information for Alexander. Making him wonder whether or not the old Top Gun crew had a general grandfather to pull some strings for them as well.
To that, Old Sullivan scoffed. "Shouldn't the great positives of that film ultimately balance those favors out? Perhaps they even owe you more."
"Those favors aren't in balance sheets. Quite unlike what you capitalists have." Old Man Pierce scoffed back but then turned to his grandson with seriousness. "Besides, as much of a penchant for attracting trouble as this boy is, a recent move of his may have turned out to be good for his situation."
"Oh, how so?" That got Old Sullivan curious.
"This is need-to-know for now but DARPA had long been set to let go of the ARPANET and basically hand it over to the National Science Foundation." Old Man Pierce explained.
"I've been told about that." Alexander interjected. "But how exactly does ARPANET's transition to the NSFNET have something to do with me and this whole debacle?"
"Your World Wide Web idea tickled their fancy and they apparently want your insight on a lot of things." The retired general prepositioned. "It's a reach and it may not mean much but it is something."
"That all just seems like an unglorified appeasal to a wrong I've never done but the prospect of the network's advancement sure sounds appealing to pass up on."
For Alexander, that's actually a step forward, barring these entire sluggishly overblown reactions to the Iran-Contra-Contra triage.