Their Empire Style: A Brief Account of the Ares State

PEACE AT LOS ANGELES

The final treaty ending the war between the United States and Mexico was finally signed on March 15, 2016. It was a brutal peace, far worse for the Mexicans than the one for Canada had been.

The US more or less repeated their overall strategy with dividing Canada with Mexico, but not before annexing a small sliver of land south of San Diego to protect the important military installations in the city, which were needed for the continuing war with China. The US demanded strong reparations from Mexico, along with large resource "payments", forgiveness of any US debt, and Mexican acceptance of sole blame for "instigating" the conflict. Mexico was also forced to abolish it's armed forces, being allowed only to maintain a small police force to keep the domestic peace.

Out of the northwestern part of the country the US carved out the Republic of Sonora, capital at Hermosillo. To Sonora's east was the newly formed Republic del Rio Grande, otherwise known as Rio, with a capital of Monterrey. The Republic of the Yucatan was created out of the Yucatan Peninsula, with the intent being it would become a sort of Maya state similar to Keewatin to the north.

The remainder of the country became the rump of the United Mexican States, centered around the once proud metropolis of Mexico City.

The Treaty of Los Angeles didn't affect just Mexico, however. The many Central American states, which had tied their fates with Mexico in 2013 out of fear of Neocalvinist victory in the war, were also carved up, albeit less so than Mexico. Out of Honduras and El Salvador the US created the United States of Cochumbara, which would become a "Homeland" for the region's Protestant population. The rump of the two countries would be morphed into a rump Honduras, the Ares rejecting the name "Salvador" for it bearing too "Catholic".

Unlike Canada, however, the US strictly curtailed Mexican economic growth. All former Mexican territories were forbidden from developing heavy industry which could be used to undermine US power in the region, and their populations were often exploited for agricultural and other labor-intensive work in the US through the Mexica-America Labor Exchange Program established by Lither in May of 2016. As part of the program, laborers drawn from Mexico would be assigned work in the US for a period of 2-3 years. However, particularly lucrative workers were able to apply for "Assimilation" with the government's and their boss' approval, and thus could go on to become American citizens.

But despite the overtures of peace tensions between the US and their new client states remained tense. Although the Treaty of Los Angeles had been brutal to the Mexican state and people, many radical Ares did not feel that it went far enough to prevent any future Mexican ascendance, and urged Lither, the NBI, and the SD to take a more hardline approach towards dealing with the "Mexican Question".