Capítulo 1899: Chapter 812: A Lie Repeated Ten Thousand Tis Is Still the Wilderness!
May 17, 1997, New Delhi, Ah San.
The air was filled with a strange sll, a twisted mix of sandalwood, sweat, and overheated electronics.
The huge screen on the wall was divided into more than a dozen sections, showing street scenes from major cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore: crowds were still gathering, but the slogans had quietly shifted from the initial “Long live the Indian Navy!” to “We want truth! No more lies!” and “Incompetent governnt, step down!”.
Clips of sporadic clashes flashed by, police using high-pressure water cannons to disperse protesters trying to storm governnt buildings.
At this mont, in Ah San…
There were still so “opposition ard groups” around.
You folks probably don’t even know Ah San actually has GC ard forces, right?
Defense Minister Jasjit Singh slumped in his chair, tie askew, eyes bloodshot, clutching a crumpled copy of the India Tis. The front-page headline was a punch in the face: “The Price of ‘Victory’: Seventy-Two Hours of Global Ridicule”.
The article was vicious to the extre, quoting sarcastic coverage from dozens of major dia outlets worldwide about Ah San’s official “good news”, and attaching screencaps from that xican TV station’s battlefield footage—so clear it was downright despair-inducing.
“It’s over… it’s all over…” Singh muttered to himself, his voice hoarse like sandpaper scraping, “Credibility… the military’s credibility, the governnt’s credibility… all of it’s gone to the fucking dogs…”
Across from him, Intelligence Bureau Director Rajiv Sharma looked just as ashen, but in his eyes burned a fire that was close to madness.
“No! Minister! It’s not over yet! We still have cards to play!”
“Cards?” Singh jerked his head up like he’d just heard the world’s biggest joke, his eyes a hysterical bloodshot red. “What cards do we have left?! INS Lanville is still drifting out at sea, and can barely move with Tugboats! INS Ganga is half sunk, and the salvage bill is astronomical! Over a hundred Sailors dead or wounded, their families howling outside the Navy Departnt! The whole world is watching us make fools of ourselves! The xicans are even doing fucking ‘humanitarian rescue’! Cards?! Tell , what cards?!”
Sharma leaned in, lowering his voice: “The opinion card! The narrative card! Minister, think about it—why could the xicans flip public opinion in an instant? Because they controlled the visuals! They had dia ships, they had HD footage, they were the first to tell ‘their story’ to the world! And us? We reacted slowly, we were caught off guard, we got shell-shocked by their information Blitzkrieg!”
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Singh waved irritably: “What’s the use of saying this now? The footage is already out there, for fuck’s sake! Everyone’s seen our warships burning and sinking!”
“Seeing it is one thing; who they believe is another!” Sharma slamd the table, spittle almost spraying onto Singh’s face. “The xicans can say it was self-defense, a punishnt for provocation. Why can’t we say it was a ticulously planned conspiracy by them? That it was a shaless sneak attack using advanced equipnt? That our brave officers and n, after inflicting heavy damage on the enemy in a desperate situation, voluntarily disengaged out of humanitarian concern and to avoid escalation?”
Singh stared at him like he was insane: “You think the whole world’s full of idiots? Those videos—”
“The videos can be interpreted!”
Sharma cut him off, eyes blazing, “We can set up a top-tier, cross-agency ‘Special Narrative Task Force’! Pick the most loyal, most eloquent people, those who know the international discourse ga best—experts, retired generals, diplomats! Then scatter them! Send them to key points all over the world! London, Paris, Berlin, Washington, Cairo, Nairobi… every major international dia hub, think tank, university, diplomatic circle!”
The more he spoke, the more worked up he got, gesturing wildly:
“Have them go out and talk! Debate! Give lectures! Do interviews! Write op-eds! The the is ‘xico’s new XXXX ambitions’ and ‘Ah San’s tragic sacrifice to defend regional security’! Hamr on the threat posed by xico, play down our tactical blunders, package this clash as a heroic chapter of ‘David versus a high-tech Goliath’! Emphasize that we hit their ships, emphasize how brave our officers and n were, emphasize how many technological advantages the xicans had and yet still ‘suffered heavy losses’!”
Singh was stunned into silence by this grandiose “vision”, and blankly asked, “Will… will this really work? Will anyone believe it?”
“Whether they believe it or not doesn’t matter!” Sharma said, cutting like a knife. “What matters is making noise! Stirring up the waters! Making sure international opinion is no longer one-sided! As long as there are different voices, so people will start to doubt, so will start to argue, and attention will drift away from xico’s so-called ‘perfect victory’! That buys us ti—ti to heal internally, to pull public morale back together! And besides…”
“We’ll also be handing a knife to those countries that are uneasy about xico’s rise. The United Kingdom, France—maybe they won’t say it out loud, but aren’t they afraid xico will crush them with its technological edge next? Our ‘tragic hero’ narrative gives them a convenient excuse to secretly sympathize with us, even offer us limited support! This is what you call ‘snatching life from the jaws of defeat’, Minister!”
Singh’s heart started pounding uncontrollably. In his despair, this crazy plan looked like a straw he could still cling to.
Yeah, the disgrace had already blasted all the way across the Milky Way Galaxy; could it really get any worse? And what if… what if they really managed to claw back a bit of public opinion? Even if it only ant making the xicans eat so shit for a change?
“How many resources do you need?” Singh’s voice was dry.
“Money! Lots of money! The best PR firms, top-tier travel schedules, and the ‘authoritative expert’ packaging fees!” Sharma rattled it off quickly. “Preliminary estimate, we need to form at least 20 lean promo teams, sent to 20 key nodes around the globe. Upfront cost… not less than 200 million US Dollars.”
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