THE OCCUPATION
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“A country can not simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”
- Albert Einstein
This is a story about an extraordinary event in our nation’s history. One that rocked the very foundation of what we are as a people and as a country. Our years of complacency, arrogance and assumptions about security were forever changed. Our backyards were no longer our own. The conquerers became the conquered, the occupiers, the occupied. Freedom, as we knew it, died along with countless indifferent souls that took their daily commutes, double lattes and movie nights for granted. The third world came busting through our back door like an angry nightmare. We were no longer keepers of the peace around the globe, because the specter of war came to pay us a visit at home.
It was a gray November day at the Port of Seattle, one of the busiest on the Western seaboard. This was ground zero for an invasion so incredibly audacious, yet surgical in its execution that before we knew what had happened, three divisions of North Korea’s fighting elite had the entire downtown area of Seattle under siege. Two Supermax container ships, housing over 30,000 soldiers along with light armor and air support, quietly entered the chilly waters of the Puget Sound and floated unmolested into the downtown, city harbor. Once docked, they proceeded to disembark in a highly coordinated ‘Blitzkrieg’ urban invasion where they mercilessly cut the city center from the rest of the outside world, effectively taking 70,000 Seattle residents hostage in a single afternoon.
“We want our South Korea”.
A single demand, communicated through the fog of disbelief that had settled over the nation from the determined voice of Kim Jong-Un. A bellicose regime, thought until recently, on the verge of economic collapse. Through years of isolation, sanctions and endless posturing, the plight of the DPRK was becoming untenable. As western pressure mounted against a desperate country with nothing left to lose, they planned one of the most massively covert military operations in history. All with the hope of reuniting their peninsula and restoring their country to its former glory.
Over five years in the making, this operation now leaves America with a sobering reality. How do we retake a city where the collateral damage would be our own people? To make matters worse, the DPRK ground forces claim to have a “nuke” hidden somewhere among the Seattle population and have threatened to use it as a last resort if their single demand is not met or if any attempt is made to mount a retaliatory strike. It’s no question that the North Korean’s possess the “Bomb”, but are they crazy enough to use it in this situation?
In the spirt of ‘Red Dawn’ meets ‘Children of Men’, THE OCCUPATION plays on these age old conflicts within a contemporary backdrop. All the while, staying true to the real world authenticity that brings home the sobering realities of an foreign occupation on American soil. The daily brutality of forced labor, summary executions and food rationing becomes the abhorrent routine in a city that until recently, was best known for its coffee, burgeoning tech industry and Seahawks football.
We will follow the disparate situations of several residents turned hostages in their own city as they contend with a harsh, new reality. Unlikely heroes are born as a scrappy insurgency tries to reclaim their homeland from the hands of a belligerent tyrant, while our nation’s leaders contend with an unimaginable conflict that plays out in their own backyard. Never before has the cost of war been more palatable to so many. Only time will tell if Americans will band together and take back what is rightfully theirs or will the North Koreans force us to do the same for them?