In the year 2013, one year after the death of North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-il, his son and successor, Kim Jong-un, reunites North and South Korea to form the Greater Korean Republic (GKR), a technological and economic global power that utilizes the military strength of the North and the economic strength of the South. By the year 2015, a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, both becoming nuclear-armed states, devastated the global oil supply, causing gas prices to skyrocket to $19.99 per gallon, leaving many countries in debt and causing mass hysteria. This precipitates extreme economic turmoil and massive social unrest in the United States. Subsequently, in 2017, the U.S. military recalls much of its overseas presence, particularly in the Pacific. A year later, Japan, significantly weakened due to the diminishing of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, is easily conquered by the GKR and joins the Greater Korean Republic as a satellite country.
In 2022, conditions in the United States get worse, with the collapse of the financial system and an Asian bird flu epidemic that claims six million lives, forcing the Mexican government to quarantine the country by setting up immigration quotas as the Asian bird flu continues throughout North America. By 2024, Korea's annexation has continued throughout Southeast Asia, including its emerging economic powers, giving the GKR an empire reminiscent of Imperial Japan. Finally, in 2025, the Greater Korean Republic launched a supposed advanced GPS satellite that would be a signal of peace, but is actually an orbital weapon that detonated a high-altitude nuclear device over the U.S.
