One Turn More by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)

A title that I shoulda saved for something Civilization-related.

Affectionate parody of "One Day More" from Les Misérables musical, written as a bribe in anticipation of finishing the first draft of the Multipolarity Epilogue for e350tb's October writing contest, with further editing from its publication on CivFanatics. The themes of Les Mis coalign beautifully with the game's setting, and this song in particular as the battle cry the day before Operation Shah Mat, the fight to take back the country from resurgent dictatorship. I'd originally thought for sure I'd have the story done for January 3; in fact it was only finally submitted early Sunday.

--- DRAMATIS PERSONÆ ---
THORVALD as VALJEAN—A player and author ever on the run from... no wait, if he's trying to finish epilogues he'd be running to them...
JIANGUO DEMING as MARIUS—A lawyer that served as President of republican China from 2166–73; exiled following monarchist invasion.
LAN XIURONG as COSETTE—Lieutenant in the Scarlet Lancers who served as China's ambassador to the United Nations during the republican years; torture by the army in the 2150s murdered her family and led her to join the revolutionaries.
FANATICO McFASCIST as ÉPONINE—Dictator of the Greater Union of New Scotireland, the game's ending hyperpower; ironically, whereas Éponine laments that Marius never notices her, the fascists rose to power precisely because other players ignored the Scotirish Civil War.
LADY AKANE as ENJOLRAS—Nine-tailed fox and leader of the Scarlet Lancers, a republican revolutionary organization synonymous with the Chinese resistance. The gender shift creates an interesting double entendre in the sixth stanza that slightly shifts the meaning of Deming's lines. Neither her given name nor nationality are mentioned in-game, making Christos' 'yōkai' reference uncharacteristically astute.
CHRISTOS XINJIANG as JAVERT—Premier of Communist China from the mid-2150s to his ousting in '59, but serves as a free man under successive corrupt governments. Quintessential Maoist dictator, he was the initial focus of Lancer sedition, and after the death of Mad King George in 2173 resumed his role as China's main antagonist, due partly because he was seen as a self-insert of the player Christos200.
POPE PETER III as the THÉRNARDIERS—An unscrupulous, Machiavellian schemer that conspired in imperial conquest for personal profit; similar to Christos he (and to a lesser extent, his predecessor Pius XVII) was regarded as a mirror of the player Jehoshua and a textbook demonstration of why people hate orthodox Catholics. Bonus points for Cockney and Aussie being closely-linked accents.
LANCER PARTISANS as the STUDENTS—An international republican mujahideen.

[Originally submitted to DeviantArt January 2015.]