The Medician Civil War was a year-long civil war that occurred in the Mediterranean island nation of Medici in 2015, resulting in the overthrow of Generalissimo Sebastiano Di Ravello's authoritarian regime.
Background[]
During the Cold War, the Mediterranean island nation of Medici was a crucial asset for the United States and NATO, which used Medici's soil to house ICBM bases capable of striking at the Soviet satellites of the Eastern Bloc in the event that World War III broke out. As the Soviet Union declined and the Cold War neared its end in the 1980s, Medici began to experience a shift towards leftism, with voters opposing the stationing of Western Bloc missiles on their island. In response, the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked with the ambitious General Sebastiano Di Ravello to foment a right-wing, pro-American coup of the island. When the military officers De Luca and Dushku rebelled in southern Medici in 1986, President Dante was forced to turn to Di Ravello for help with crushing the uprising. When the populist politician Rosa Manuela appeared to be on the verge of victory over Dante in that year's presidential election, Di Ravello had De Luca's rebels trample Dante to death in the town of Olivo Moro, and he promptly declared a state of emergency and established himself as dictator. Di Ravello put down the uprising and forced the two rebel leaders to kill each other, leaving him firmly in control of Medici.
Di Ravello would continue to be a staunch partner of the anti-communist bloc until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, after which he continued to rule as a strongman. Though the United States began to turn against its former puppets after the Cold War - deposing the authoritarian and previously US-backed governments of Haiti, Zaire, Serbia, Afghanistan, San Esperito, and Panau - Di Ravello held onto power after he agreed to export the rare earth mineral Bavarium (capable of powering jets and reinforcing armor) to the United States. His country enjoyed a period of prosperity due to beach tourism and the country's reputation as a partying destination, but the masked thugs of the Di Ravello Militia replaced the functions of the police and frequently abducted perceived political opponents. The Medician Army enforced Di Ravello's rule with an iron grip, resulting in widespread dissatisfaction with his rule.
After the outbreak of the Arab Spring in the eastern Mediterranean and in North Africa in 2011, the same anti-authoritarian sentiment spread to Medici across the water. By 2015, opponents of Di Ravello's regime formed Liberar Salrosa ("Liberate the Island of Devils"), an armed resistance movement dedicated to restoring liberal democracy to Medici. This group was largely confined to the countryside and caves of southern Medici, having toeholds on each of Medici's islands. However, the presence of massive military bases near these hideouts and repression by the Di Ravello Militia (DRM) limited the rebellion's capabilities.
War[]
On hearing that a rebellion had broken out against Di Ravello, and that his old friend Mario Frigo was helping to lead the movement, CIA field agent and regime change specialist Rico Rodriguez quit the agency and persuaded his superior Tom Sheldon to fly him to Medici in a plane full of military equipment. Sheldon agreed to help the rebels in exchange for the CIA continuing to receive Bavarium from their new regime; the rebels were provided with advanced communication equipment from the beginning.
Though Rodriguez witnessed the failure of the Di Ravello Week attacks, he was quickly outfitted with Dimah al-Masri's latest military technology and set loose liberating Medici's towns and destroying its military bases. The first town to be freed was Manaea on the island of Insula Fonte, after which Rodriguez and the rebels gradually liberated the southern islands. Di Ravello retaliated against the rebellion by razing Costa del Porto, but the rebellion continued to gain strength as Rodriguez used his experience from San Esperito and Panau to destabilize Di Ravello's government. Di Ravello retaliated by attempting to launch a Bavarium missile at Baia, but Rodriguez was able to redirect the missile to strike the military command center at Cima Leon. Rodriguez also destroyed the regime's Bavarium-powered Imperator tanks and its Bavarium refineries and mines, but the government mole Zeno Antithikara fed Di Ravello information that helped his forces push the rebels back. Di Ravello launched a major attack on the rebels' coastal hideout, but Rodriguez repelled it and confined government forces to only one region of Medici after destroying the Corda Dracon central command base.
As the rebellion achieved many successes, the exiled populist leader Rosa Manuela returned from exile in South America to help lead the uprising and create a democratic government. The rebels then launched a final assault on Di Ravello's stronghold of Falco Maxime, and al-Masri sacrificed herself to direct a missile at the base, destroying all known information about Bavarium and denying the CIA its use. With his forces in disarray, and having cancelled his Bavarium exportation deal with the USA due to the CIA's playing of both sides in the war, Di Ravello attempted to use his Bavarium-powered helicopter to kill Rodriguez on a volcanic island. Rodriguez shot down the helicopter and allowed a defeated Di Ravello to throw himself into a lava pit, marking the end of his dictatorship and enabling Manuela to establish a liberal democratic republic.