Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

In 1982, due to Britain's defeat in the Falklands War and the country's terrible inflation and unemployment, the disgraced Thatcher had to step down amid a barrage of criticism.

Although Thatcher resigned, the Conservative Party was unable to produce a convincing replacement in the short term, and the British Conservative Party entered a caretaker state, temporarily led by Foreign Secretary Pym.

In the snap election in October 1982, the relatively moderate Labour Party came to power, and Ford became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

At this point, the national humiliation of the Falklands defeat overwhelmed everything else in Britain. Thatcher's neoliberal economic policies had already created widespread anxiety, and losing the Falklands victory, her only lifeline, only intensified the backlash against her.

But Ford's victory was not overwhelming—the Liberal coalition, which had split the Labor Party, had taken a significant number of centrist votes. While Labor formed a government by a narrow margin, it only held a majority of 25 seats. Dennis Healy was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer as a gesture of goodwill towards the right wing of the party, while the left wing, represented by Tony Ben, entered the cabinet but were relegated to less important positions such as in the Department of Energy.

In 1983, the Ford government launched a "Hundred Days' Reform," implementing three major policies:

The government announced the cancellation of the Trident nuclear submarine program; refused to deploy US cruise missiles on Greenham Common in response to the Soviet Union's deployment of ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe; and launched a nationalization plan—with Thatcher's priority targets being British Telecom and British Airways, which had been privatized.

The Reagan administration reacted strongly. The cancellation of the cruise missile deployment meant a major gap in NATO's intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe. The United States began to regard Britain as an unreliable ally, intelligence sharing was downgraded, and the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States fell to its lowest point since World War II.

Unsurprisingly, the United States remained at a disadvantage in subsequent troop withdrawal negotiations, including the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the US and the Soviet Union.

In 1984, a major strike by coal miners occurred in Britain. If Thatcher's neoliberal reforms had lasted a few more years, they could have weathered the growing pains. However, the Labour Party has started to change its mind frequently, resulting in even greater economic chaos in Britain.

But this strike had a completely different impact on the Labour government: the Ford government could neither launch a direct cavalry attack to defend its power like Thatcher did, nor could it meet all the union's demands due to its financial constraints.

Meanwhile, Labour's further nationalization and increased public spending led to a further depreciation of the pound and accelerated capital outflows. The international monetary market began to lose confidence in "socialist Britain." By the end of 1984, Britain faced a situation similar to the 1976 currency crisis—either seeking assistance from the International Monetary Fund or drastically cutting spending and betraying its voter promises.

This led to a split within the Labour Party in 1985, with Healy, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, forced to implement austerity measures, resulting in open conflict with the left wing led by Ben. Ford's health deteriorated (his health had been declining in recent years), making it increasingly difficult for him to reconcile the internal party conflicts.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union began to project an image of "efficient socialism," which further exacerbated the divisions within the British Labour Party: the left was encouraged—"Look, socialism can work!"—while the right became even more uneasy—"We cannot be equated with the Soviet Union!"

In the spring of 1986, Ford resigned due to health reasons, and Neil Kinnock, the Labour Party's second-in-command, took over as Prime Minister. Kinnock immediately halted further nationalization, retained some of the privatization achievements of the Thatcher era, and softened the stance on nuclear weapons from unilateral disarmament to multilateral disarmament negotiations.

PS: It turns out that Neil Kinnock was the Labour Party leader during Thatcher's administration, and he was exposed for plagiarizing Biden's speeches during his 1988 campaign.

Man proposes, God disposes. Kinnock's rise to power did not save the Labour Party, as the US economic crisis erupted in 1987.

The City of London suffered severe losses, which nearly caused the Labour Party to lose by just four votes in the 1988 general election. The Labour Party was able to win because the Conservative Party was even worse.

Thanks to Thatcher, the Conservative Party is still burdened by the Falklands failure, and now the free market narrative has also been bankrupted by the United States.

With both parties struggling, the British people will either turn left or right. Given NATO's policy of prioritizing the prevention of the left over the right, a rightward shift in British politics is inevitable.

Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine, a disciple of Thatcher and now the leader of the Conservative Party, stepped forward to reshape the party's image. This time, he couldn't afford Thatcherian market fundamentalism; he wanted to call it "national conservatism."

Britain needs to rearm itself in a dangerous world!

In 1989-1990, the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe did not occur. Slava's reforms maintained the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact, the Cold War did not end, and the West did not have a sense of victory in the end of history.

The combination of a reformed Soviet Union and a depressed United States deeply unsettled Britain's elites. Serious divisions began to emerge within the Kinnock government:

The left wing advocated using this opportunity to advance disarmament and détente, while the right wing and the military system believed that the Soviet Union's reforms had turned it into a more dangerous adversary—an efficient and attractive socialist superpower was more formidable than a rigid Soviet Union!

In the fall of 1990, the Kinnock government fell from power, and the Conservative Party came to power in the general election in the spring of 1991, with hardliner Heseltine becoming the new prime minister.

At only 58 years old, he was energetic, charismatic, and possessed both the pragmatism of a businessman and the charisma of a politician. This new Conservative leader came to power with a vision of restoring order—he wanted to reverse the leftward shift left by Ford, make Britain once again America's most loyal ally, and restore Britain to its position as a pillar of the free world!

The Hesselt government was eager to repair Anglo-American relations. However, since the United States was just recovering from the recession, the Gephardt government faced enormous domestic pressure and lacked any real learning material.

Britain's overtures provided Gepphardt with this material: at least on the international stage, the United States still has loyal allies, and the United States can still win!

As Warsaw Pact propaganda began to infiltrate the West, it had a significant impact on Britain. English was the dominant language of the internet, giving the British public direct access to Soviet English propaganda. London also had a strong left-wing intellectual and media tradition, and the Falklands defeat and economic hardship had shaken many Britons' confidence in their own system.

Heseltine, a politician with a background in media publishing, understood the importance of information warfare. Soon, the British government issued its first Internet Security Order—authorized by the Official Secrets Act of 1989, which gave the government the power to restrict citizens' access to "foreign information sources that may endanger national security."

The Official Secrets Act, first enacted in 1911, contained a highly controversial Section 2 that virtually prohibited all unauthorized disclosure of official information. Furthermore, the Act's definition of "official information" was extremely vague, leaving the government with considerable discretion. During the Cold War, the British government could respond to any public discontent with the phrase "involving national security."

Article 3 of the Internet Security Order stipulates that British citizens need to apply for a license to access the international internet. Applications from individual users are approved by the Home Office, and unauthorized access to the international internet is considered a violation of the Official Secrets Act, punishable by fines and up to five years imprisonment.

In order to demonstrate democracy and freedom, and to ensure that citizens do not completely lose access to the internet, the government decided to establish officially designated internet cafes.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Internet cafes designated by the British government are very special places.

They are usually located in the outbuildings of post offices or public libraries—because these places are part of government agencies and are easy to manage.

Each internet cafe has a sign hanging at its entrance:

"Government-authorized Internet access point"

"Instructions for Use: In accordance with the Internet Security Order and the Official Secrets Act 1989, users must comply with the following regulations..."

The regulations are lengthy, but the core points are:

First, users must register their identity. Before using an internet cafe, users must present valid identification, and staff will register their name, address, and ID number. The UK government claims that the registration information "will be properly kept and used only for security purposes."

Second, users' online activity will be recorded. The browsing history of each device will be automatically saved on the server. The government states that these records will only be accessed "when there are reasonable security reasons" and will not be monitored routinely.

Third, users are prohibited from accessing websites on the blocked list. Downloading, saving, or disseminating materials "involving extremist ideologies" is also prohibited; violators will be prosecuted in accordance with the Official Secrets Act.

The internet cafe has cameras installed at the entrance, which the British government says is to ensure public safety. Filtering software and reporting programs have also been installed on every terminal: any sensitive words that the British government deems inappropriate will be uploaded.

The definition of "inappropriate" is rather vague, encompassing everything from Soviet ideological propaganda to websites with certain radical political views. The specific words that are considered sensitive are determined by a committee within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is not made public in order to "prevent criminals from adjusting their language based on the officially published list of sensitive words."

At this point, the Soviet cyber army began to exert its influence, frequently citing British regulations internationally. This led to many NATO netizens being unable to win arguments with Soviet netizens when trying to establish their own political systems.

The British left, which had become active during Ford's administration, quickly began protesting both online and offline:

"Freedom of information is the cornerstone of democracy!"

Who is censoring whom?

"Orwell warned us to overthrow totalitarianism! We must never become Oceania from 1984!" (This message has been intercepted and reported to the censorship committee.)

The British government believes these protests precisely confirm the US warnings to NATO, and that the British left is speaking on behalf of the Soviet Union! This is the result of Soviet information warfare, a bribe of 50 rubles from the Communists!

As a result, the UK Internet Content Management Interim Measures were introduced, which created a new concept: "materials involving extreme ideologies".

What is an extreme ideology?

"...any ideology that systematically promotes a fundamental opposition to the British constitutional democracy, including but not limited to communism, fascism, anarchism and its variants."

In order to empower the people, defend democracy, and demonstrate that citizens will stand up for the British constitutional system for freedom of speech, the British government has begun encouraging citizens to report on each other – citizens can anonymously report websites, accounts, and statements they see on the internet that are “involving extreme ideologies.”

The government has pledged to take every report seriously.

In late February 1994, the Ministry of the Interior established the "Internet Content Censorship Office" and secretly hired a large number of staff. Their daily work was to review reported websites and comments, and decide which ones to delete, which ones to block, and which ones to hand over to the courts.

Any account deemed to be "involved in extreme ideologies" on UK forums and discussion boards will be banned, and the account holder's identity information will be transferred to the Home Office for filing.

Dissent itself is evidence of a crime; your opposition to censorship proves that you need to be censored!

On the international internet, not only Soviet netizens, but also netizens from other NATO member states felt that the UK's "705u.com-reading club" was too extreme, and the British accounts that chatted with them via VPN were often suddenly offline and blocked for various strange reasons.

So everyone started figuring out how to circumvent the UK Home Office's scrutiny.

As it turns out, human creativity in political ingenuity is boundless. A large number of euphemisms and fictitious terms have been created. Britain is directly referred to as "Oceania," and Prime Minister Heseltine is called "Big Brother." Whenever political discussions on international forums go too far, people often joke that "Big Brother is watching us. Don't send our innocent British friends in the forum to the Ministry of Truth for re-education."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

While all this was happening, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet Union, after absorbing Japanese technology, developed its own game console, the PS1.

The PS1 was released in January 1994 and immediately became famous within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).

At its core is a custom graphics processing chip—designed and manufactured by the Soviet Union’s microelectronics institute and the NVIDIA Electronics Production Cooperative in the Far East Special Zone.

This chip was the world's best at the time in 3D graphics processing, such as texture mapping, polygon rendering, and lighting calculation.

During the bubble economy crisis, the Soviet Union acquired a large number of Japanese industrial assets, including Sony.

Between 1987 and 1989, Sony spent $80 billion to acquire CBS Records and Columbia Pictures during the height of Japan's bubble economy. However, the United States was still in the midst of the Great Depression at that time, and American consumers were unemployed and tightening their belts, so movie box office and record sales were naturally not doing well.

Sony's billions of dollars in investment turned into a black hole. The Soviet Union's takeover of Japanese overseas factories allowed them to seize Sony's supply chains in Southeast Asia and other regions. Thus, by the end of 1992, facing a sharp decline in domestic assets, massive losses in its entertainment business due to the US market downturn, the encroachment of its overseas factories by the Soviet Union, and the inability of the Japanese banking system to provide a bailout, Sony was forced to sell off a large number of core assets to survive.

Sony needed to prioritize preserving its core consumer electronics businesses, such as Walkmans, televisions, and camcorders, rather than a new market project that was, at the time, a gamble.

Thus, the team led by Ken Yukuragi, who created the PS console, was sold to the Soviet Union by Sony.

As for Nvidia's joining the Soviet Union, that was an even bigger coincidence.

In early 1993, Jensen Huang was struggling to find venture capital for his graphics chip startup in a depressed Silicon Valley. The science attaché at the Soviet consulate in San Francisco took notice of him, and the Soviets, through a joint venture shell company registered in Singapore, extended an invitation to Huang's team.

“Come to the Far East Special Economic Zone and use all the semiconductor IP and manufacturing equipment we acquired from Japan. We will provide full funding, and you will retain the autonomy of your technical team!”

Huang Renxun hesitated for a long time, but what finally prompted him to make a decision was seeing a large number of anti-Asian violence incidents reported on television news.

During the Great Depression, the right-leaning American society clamored for the killing of the Japanese, who were to blame for all the evil. As a side effect of this "love me, love my dog," all Asians were added to MAGA's attack list.

Huang Renxun was very fond of new technologies. After learning about the development of the Soviet Union through the internet, he believed that his dream could be realized by establishing a special zone in the Soviet Far East.

After absorbing a large amount of technology and industrial assets from Japan in 1992, the Soviet Union reformed state-owned enterprises, allowed citizens to establish cooperatives or private enterprises, and relaxed the review of individual patents. However, it still brought socialist economic forms such as Soviet democracy and collective ownership of the means of production into private enterprises.

Because the Soviet Union's patent system was state-owned, all enterprises and organizations could use the patents. Therefore, Huang Renxun believed that they could directly use the technology that the Japanese had acquired from the Soviet Union when they came to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union's microelectronics technology was no less advanced than that of the United States, and in mainframes, it even surpassed IBM and Intel. Just then, Huang Renxun learned that the Soviet Union had acquired a great deal of graphics computing technology after acquiring Japanese industries, and he decided to capitalize on this socialist advantage.

Go to the Soviet Union and manufacture graphics cards!

So in early 1993, Huang Renxun led his technical team to the Soviet Far East Special Zone to fulfill their dream.

His company initially had no name, and all documents about the company were simply named "NV" (next version). Due to the naming requirements for registering the company, the co-founders eventually named the company NVIDIA, a word inspired by the Latin word "invidia" (jealousy).

On February 5, 1993, the NVIDIA Electronics Production Cooperative was established in the Soviet Far East Special Region.

At that time, no one knew that this fledgling Soviet graphics card company would rival the American company AMD for the next decade or so, until the United States collapsed under pressure and crisis.

Shortly after its establishment, the NVIDIA Electronics Production Cooperative formed a strategic partnership with the Dawn Electronics Production Cooperative, which was also developing mainframes in the Far East Special Economic Zone. Dawn was a new enterprise established in the Special Economic Zone after the Soviet Union integrated the electronics industries acquired by Sony, Toshiba, and others in Japan. Ken Kutaragi's team, who designed the graphics computing unit, and NVIDIA jointly created their mainframe brand.

PlayStation, abbreviated as PS.

The PS1 was first launched within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) in January 1994, and the extremely inexpensive game console was soon available in stores in the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania.

It comes bundled with several launch titles—a racing game, a fighting game, and a shooter set on the Eastern Front of World War II, where players take on the role of a Soviet soldier fighting their way from Stalingrad to Berlin.

Because the Soviet Union implemented a computerized planned economy, the price of the PS1 was set by the state. The committee responsible for setting its price could not find a similar reference in the past price system, so it could only be priced very low as an electronic toy.

The PS1 was sold at two different prices in the Soviet Union and in special zones. The Soviet Union purchased the production license for the PS1 and promised to provide subsidies to Dawn Enterprise for every unit sold domestically, giving Dawn the incentive to use the PS1 to carve out a path in the international market where market price signals were coordinated.

The Soviet Union knew that this operation would lead to a large amount of smuggling, but that was exactly what the Soviet government wanted!

Only extremely high profits could motivate capitalist merchants to risk treason and execution by reselling Soviet products; Soviet game console cartridges often contained contraband.

To facilitate Western citizens' exposure to socialist games, the Soviet Union even ported its domestic Linux system to the PS1, allowing foreigners to import games or programs downloaded from the internet and play them on the PS1.

It was far easier for Soviet games to be exported to NATO via the internet than to NATO countries via game consoles!

By March 1994, the PS1 was already selling like hotcakes within the Komeito Co-operation Association (KCO). Young people were scrambling to buy it, parents were buying it as a birthday gift for their children, and some factory unions were distributing PS1s to their employees as a perk.

At that time, the Soviet Union had millions of internet users, accounting for four-sevenths of the world's internet users. The vast number of computer enthusiasts in the country immediately put their minds to work and made their own games, such as "White Alert" - the first level tells the story of the US military airborne attack on Red Square in Moscow.

For example, in "Kremlin Crisis: Cold War," players take on the role of the General Secretary of the Soviet Union in 1980 and experience "what the world would have been like if Comrade Gorbachev hadn't retired due to health reasons."

The KGB was nearly scared to death when they reviewed this game. What did they mean by "what if the current emperor hadn't offended his political enemies?" What did they mean by "the alliance broke up in 1991"? At least ten people would dare to make this game! Which game studio was so audacious?

Upon closer inspection, the signature read "Kremlin Abstract Studio," and a quick search revealed that the studio's background art was created by the General Secretary's wife.

This must be the General Secretary's good intention: to educate the Soviet people that without Ivanov there would be no new Soviet Union!

Before long, a large number of Soviet-made game consoles appeared on the NATO market, and soon the militaries of various countries began to take notice of them.

The US military found it a waste to use the PS1's 3D graphics processing chip for gaming. Since the Soviet Union had ported a Linux-like system to the console, why not use it to download and run military programs?

PS: The United States actually did this in history.

In April 1994, while Britain was planning a complete ban on Soviet game consoles, the United States began a massive rush to buy PS1 game consoles in the European market.

Chapter 133 Attracting NATO netizens to engage in political discussion still relies on eroticism

London, April 1994

The British Home Office has added the Soviet-made PS1 game console to its list of "controlled foreign electronic devices".

"...Given that the operating system on the device could be used to access unauthorized foreign information networks, posing a security risk, in accordance with Section 7 of the Internet Security Order and relevant provisions of the Official Secrets Act 1989, the sale, possession and use of the aforementioned device in the UK are prohibited from this date."

Not only was the sale of Soviet game consoles banned, but Britain also banned their possession.

The Home Office launched a massive seizure operation. Police and customs officials began checking passengers' luggage at ports, airports, and entrances to the Channel Tunnel in search of PS1s. Domestically, police, acting on "reliable intelligence," searched private residences to seize PS1s.

The confiscated PS1s were sent to a warehouse, and the government said they would be handled properly, but in reality they were all sent to the United States for "centralized destruction".

Meanwhile, the British media launched a massive propaganda campaign.

The Soviet Union's name was always mentioned in the daily headlines of traditional media such as television, newspapers, and radio, which promoted the idea that Soviet products would threaten Britain's democratic constitutional traditions and brainwashed teenagers!

The Daily Mail's front page on April 13 featured a photo of a pale-faced teenage boy sitting in front of a PS1 with vacant eyes.

Title: "Toxic Games Are Eroding Our Children!"

On the television news, a haggard-looking mother with red and swollen eyes tearfully told the camera:

"My son has become a different person ever since he got his hands on that Soviet game console."