Brazil (1983: Doomsday)

Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil), is the largest country and the only Portuguese-speaking country in.

Brazil was a Portuguese colony from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until 1815 when it became a united kingdom with Portugal. In 1822 the country became independent as the Brazilian Empire, but has been a republic since 1889, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to the ratification of the first constitution in 1824.

Brazil is a founding member of the and the. It has the world's largest economy and its military might is matched only by the. Brazil is also home to a diversity of wildlife, natural environments, and extensive natural resources in a variety of protected habitats.

History

 * See main article: 

Territory
Brazil covers the same amount of territory it did before Doomsday. After Doomsday it became the second largest nation in the world after the USSR, in terms of territorial size.

Military
Brazil has one of the most powerful militaries in the world alongside the CAF of the ANZC and the military of the USSR. The branches of the Brazilian Armed Forces (Portuguese: Forças Armadas Brasileiras) comprise the Brazilian Army (including the Brazilian Army Aviation), the Brazilian Navy (including the Brazilian Marine Corps and Brazilian Naval Aviation) and the Brazilian Air Force.

The Navy in particular is very powerful, which along with the Commonwealth Navy and the Soviet Navy is one of the three navies in the world to operate an aircraft carrier, the São Paulo. They also operate a fleet of modern destroyers, frigates and submarines, along with amphibious assault ships and various support ships. Naval Aviation operates Super Etendards as well as A-4 Skyhawks.

Air Force equipment includes Embraer manufactured such as Super Tucano Trainers and R-99 AEW aircraft, as well as Dassault Mirage 4000s purchased from France. These are manufactutured under licence by Embraer. C-130s are used in the transport role. Older aircraft like the Mirage F-1 and the F-5E Tiger II are also still in service. The Mirgare 4000s operate as fighter/attack aircraft, the Mirgae F-1s as interceptors and the Tiger IIs as attack aircraft, with more powerful engines and heavier armour then when they were brought. All combat aircraft carry a wide variety of home-made ordinance and weapons.

The Army uses the MD97 as its standard firearm. Leopard One MBTs, ASTROS II MLRSs and M113s are used as well, alongside EE-9 Armoured Cars, along with Urutu light armored vehicle and the Engesa EE-4 and EE-6 light general purpose vehicles, jeeps based on General Motors drivetrain. There is also a substantial Army Aviation Force using a variety of helicopters.

Government
The Brazilian Federation is the "indissoluble union" of three distinct political entities: the States, the Municipalities and the Federal District. The Union, the states and the Federal District, and the municipalities, are the "spheres of government". The Federation is set on five fundamental principles: sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of human beings, the social values of labour and freedom of enterprise, and political pluralism. The classic tripartite branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial under the checks and balances system), is formally established by the Constitution. The executive and legislative are organized independently in all three spheres of government, while the judiciary is organized only at the federal and state/Federal District spheres.

International relations
Brazil is a member of the and the  (SAC). has been in negotiations with Brazil over a possible future union between the two nations.

Refugee Harbouring
The first refugee convoys arrived on Brazilian ports on November 1983. It was the Eugenio C cruise ship (a luxury cruiser before Doomsday, with its last tourist cruise finished on August 30th on Genova, Italy), that came all the way from Europe, with over 5,000 refugees from Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Portugal. It arrived at the Santos port on November 6th, 1983, 9:35pm (local time), being the very first of many refugee convoys to reach Brazilian soil.

Emergency medical care was given to the refugees on the ship, many of them suffering from radiation sickness, others suffering from starvation and drought.

It wasn't a long time before news about Brazil's survival spread to other refugee ships. This led to an increase on the flow of refugees to Brazil, which made Brazilian government establish rules to receive refugees on its territory, in order to avoid unrest.These rules were:
 * Refugee ships had to dock ONLY on the Santos port ;
 * All the passengers and crew would go through a complete medical examination to check for infectious diseases before being allowed into Brazilian land ;
 * Refugees with relatives or friends living in Brazil had priority on disembarking - these relatives or friends were contacted by Brazilian government and had to pick up the refugees at the port ;
 * Doctors and engineers among the refugees were allocated to work on the triage, healthcare and construction of the refugee camps;
 * Refugee children born on Brazilian soil (after the parents were registered) were to be given full Brazilian citizenship when reaching the age of 18.

The first refugee camps were on the Santos port itself, with provisionary shelter on modified cargo containters, and security provided by Brazilian army and federal police. Some cargo containers were modified in order to harbour a maximum of 20,000 refugees at once. Exceeding refugees would have to stay aboard their ships waiting for free space on land. This led to two grim episodes on Brazilian history, the Valdez incident and the Bohème incident.From the "refugee container", refugee families were put on coach buses and taken to refugee camps near the largest cities, along with tents provided by the government and a limited supply of food. There were 10 official refugee camps, three of them on the state of São Paulo, two on the state of Paraná, three on the state of Minas Gerais and two on the state of Rio de Janeiro, all in the vicinity of the capitals, so they could look for jobs when definitely relocated.

Upon arrival on the refugee camps, refugees received support from the Brazilian government, in the form of construction material (so they could build their new homes) and periodic food replenishment. They had received standartized projects for housebuilding, which were transformed on "refugee neighborhoods" which were nicknamed after the origin of the refugees ("Nova Europa" for mixed-European refugees, "Nova Berlin" for German refugee camps, "Nova America" for US refugees, etc.).

Brazil registerred a total of 787,244 refugees (not counting unborn children, illegal immigration and people who died before registering) from all parts of the world, between November 6th, 1983 and December 12nd, 1988, when the last refugee ship docked.

Refugee Incidents
Two incidents with refugee mobs happened during the period after Doomsday. On October 21st, 1984, 1,500 American East Coast refugees aboard the tanker ship Exxon Valdez refused to wait onboard for medical examination and jumped onto the sea, starting to swim in direction to Santos port. Despite orders to return to the ship or being fired upon, they continued to swim and were shot down by Brazilian army soldiers. 784 people were killed, including women and children. The others returned to the ship, which was ordered to leave Brazilian waters and look for another place to go, being "escorted" by Brazilian Navy to international waters.

On January 5th, 1985, the cruise ship Bohème, with over 4,000 refugees aboard, was part of another incident. Facing famine and illness aboard, the Bohème commander ignored orders to wait on the Santos port and sailed in direction to Vitória port (which was not prepared to receive refugees), being followed by Brazilian Navy patrol ships, which ordered the Bohème to return to port or be fired upon. Refusing to take orders from Brazilian Navy, the Bohème kept on route to Vitória, and was sank by Brazilian patrol ships near Rio de Janeiro on January 6th, leaving only 585 survivors out of more than 4,000 men, women and children aboard.

Humanitarian aid and reconaissance
Despite the two grim refugee incidents, Brazil still had a reputation for humanitarian assistance. Brazilian ships were sent to US East Coast with food and medical supplies, some of them being ransacked by starved and enraged mobs near the former city of the New York. Aid convoys were also sent to the Azores islands to help the Portuguese population there, as well as to Europe.

The aircraft carrier Minas Gerais was sent to North American East Coast for reconaissance and damage assessment on November, 1989, only to find the largest cities of Canada and United States utterly destroyed and survivors scattered through the territory, literally "bombed back to the stone age", without any assistance at all. Some food supplies were dropped from Brazilian Navy helicopters, which in fact led to more fighting between the survivors. The same carrier was sent to Europe on January, 1990 to performe damage assessment and taking humanitarian aid.

Before Doomsday
Before Doomsday, Brazilian economy was based primarily on agriculture and manufacturing. Brazilian Market was in a protectionist stage, with imports largely restricted, but no restrictions to exports, which led to some technological delays in the internal market.

Status of Brazilian industry on September 26th, 1983
Although imports were restricted, Brazil was a large exporter of agricultural goods (specially soy grains and meat) and had an uprising participation in automobile exports, specially to Third World countries (South American, African and Middle Eastern), but there were also exports to some European countries, most noted being Italy which imported FIAT cars made in Brazil. There was also a live internal market of home electronic and household appliances. The internal market for personal computers (mostly 8-bit Z80 processor based Sinclair and MSX clones, but also some Apple IIe clones and IBM PC Clones) was also thriving. Aerospatial industries was represented by EMBRAER, which was a large scale supplier of military training aircraft (mostly Tucanos and Super Tucanos) and was beginning to design airliner jets at DD. At DD, Brazil was also a large exporter of conventional weapons, most noted being the Urutu light armored vehicle and the Engesa EE-4 and EE-6 light general purpose vehicles, jeeps based on General Motors drivetrain.

Automotive Industry on September 26th, 1983
Most of the automotive industry in Brazil was comprised of branches of multinational corporations based on US and Europe. The “Big Four” in Brazil were:
 * Ford Automóveis do Brasil S.A. (a branch of Ford Motor Company from US), with its headquarters on São Bernardo do Campo, in the São Paulo metropolitan region, and additional factories, being most noted the Taubaté engine plants.
 * Volkswagen do Brasil S.A. (a branch of Volkswagen AG from Germany), stationed also on São Bernardo do Campo.
 * General Motors do Brasil S.A. (a branch of General Motors from United States), stationed on São Caetano do Sul, also near São Paulo.
 * Fiat Automóveis do Brasil S.A. (a branch of Italian FIAT Auto Spa, stationed on Betim, near the city of Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais)

With the exception of Fiat (which produced only small cars at the time), all the others were in all branches of automotive industry, manufacturing not only automobiles, but small and large trucks and coach buses.

Other companies on Brazilian automotive industry were:
 * Gurgel Automóveis do Brasil LTDA : a Brazilian company, specialized on making jeeps and dune buggies based on Volkswagen Beetle drivetrains
 * Mercedes-Benz do Brasil LTDA: A branch of Daimler-Benz AG from Germany, stationed on São Bernardo do Campo, producing only cargo vehicles such as trucks and passenger transport vehicles (large buses)
 * Scania-Vabis do Brasil: a branch of Swedish SAAB-Scania group, producing only cargo vehicles and drivetrains for coach buses.
 * Volvo do Brasil: a branch of Swedish Volvo Cars, producing only cargo vehicles and drivetrains for coach buses.
 * Honda do Brasil SA: a branch of japanese Honda Motor Co., stationed on Manaus (Amazon region), dominated nearly 75% of the Brazilian motorcycle market at Doomsday.
 * Yamaha Motores do Brasil SA: A branch of Japanese Yamaha Motor Co., also stationed on Manaus, producing motorcycles.
 * Agrale do Brasil S.A.: Motorcycle manufacturer which produced motorcycles licensed from French Cagiva.
 * Amazonas Veículos Especiais LTDA. A small scale motorcycle manufacturer which produced the Amazonas, which was the world largest motorcycle at that date, with Volkswagen 1600 drivetrain.
 * Marcopolo S.A.: a Brazilian bus manufacturer, which produced bodies for all kinds of coach buses, stationed on Caxias do Sul, state of Rio Grande do Sul. Was a large exporter of bus bodies at the time.
 * Several other smaller manufacturers, specialized on small production sports cars, replicas and dune buggys, most of them based on Volkswagen drivetrains.

Electronic and Household appliances industry on September 26th, 1983
Home electronics and household appliances industry was concentrated on the Amazon region of the city of Manaus. In the home electronics business the largest companies were Gradiente (which used mainly Sony and JVC technology) and CCE, but there were also some other smaller companies.

In the household appliances business, the largest companies were Brastemp and Consul, leading manufacturers of refrigerators and similar appliances, along with Continental, leading manufacturer of stoves and ovens.

Computer industry on September 26th, 1983
Due to the Computer Restriction Law, imports of computer components was largely restricted. This led to an interesting phenomena on Brazilian computer market: the manufacturing of clones. On the 8-bit market the lead was from Microdigital, which produced Sinclair clones (TK82C) and Apple IIe clones (TK3000), and on the 16-bit market the lead was from Sid, Scopus and Novadata, which produced IBM PC clones on their plants. Gradiente and CCE (from home electronic business) also produced their own personal computers, MSX clones.

It is important to mention that the Computer Restriction Law imposed restrictions on usage of electronics on other areas, which explains why in 1983 there were, for example, no EFI cars in Brazilian domestic market (although some were built for exports).

Miltary and Aerospace industry on September 26th, 1983
Brazil was a large exporter of light conventional weaponry, specially light armored vehicles and general purpose vehicles (jeeps) produced by Engesa. Iraq was one of the biggest clients, along with other Middle Eastern and African countries.

In the aerospatial industry, EMBRAER was known by its high-quality training aircraft, such as the Tucano and the Super Tucano. There were also projects for airliner jets on the drawing boards when DD occurred. EMBRAER was also responsible for the maintenance of the Brazilian Air Force Mirage F-1 and F-5E Tiger fighter jets.

Light weapons (revolvers and pisols) were manufactured by several companies, the most known being Taurus.

Brazil had no missile technology, so rocket-propelled weapons were limited to rocket launchers produced by IMBEL.

Energy
Brazilian energy matrix was composed primarily of hydroelectrical power plants.

Fossil fuel was used primarily on industry and long range transport (diesel-powered trucks and coach buses). Personal vehicle fleet, although primarily powered by fossil fuels (gasoline) until 1979, was being replaced by ethanol-powered cars, which comprised nearly 50% of the Brazilian automobile fleet as of 1983. So, oil imports weren´t much of a concern to Brazilian economy at the time.

Foreign Trade on September 26th, 1983
When Doomsday occurred, Brazilian foreign trade was composed of:
 * limited imports of oil
 * large exports of meat (red and white), soy grains, wheat grains, corn grains, oranges and other fruits
 * growing exports of home electronic and household appliances (limited to South America)
 * thriving exports from the automotive industry (mostly to Latin America, Africa and Middle East, but with some clients on United States and Europe)
 * respectable exports of military vehicles and training aircraft, specially to African and Middle Eastern countries (Iraq being one of the largest buyers of Brazilian armored vehicles)

Brazilian Industry and Economy after Doomsday
It is reasonable to say that Brazilian protecionist policies somehow shielded Brazilian economy from the worldwide collapse that happened in the world after DD, making it possible to Brazil to become, among other achievements, the largest manufacturer of motor vehicles on the post-Doomsday world, and one of the largest suppliers of food.

Immediately after Doomsday, all exports were halted for reevaluation of priorities. Food exports were halted in order to prioritize the feeding of Brazil´s own population.

Multinational companies (specially on the automotive industry) were statized, having their control transferred to Brazilian government, although keeping 49% of the companies to Brazilian stockholders. This measure was necessary to prevent the dismantling of Brazilian industry and consequent unemployment and supply shortage.

Home electronic and computer companies went through a shortage of components (mostly imported from Asia and US), which led to the development of Brazilian technology on those fields, first by reverse engineering of the existing components (which was considered a top priority by Brazilian government since electronics were fundamental on the industrial processes that needed to be kept operational), later by the development of its own technology on microchip manufacturing.

Due to the shortage of food on world market, ethanol-powered cars were limited to 50% of the production mix, in order to keep a minimum of the sugarcane crops directed for food production. Oil for producing gasoline fuel was to be imported at extremely low prices from Venezuela anyway (which had no other clients).

Manufacturing of large trucks and coach buses went up, since transportation of goods and people through the surviving countries was essential for reconstruction and humanitarian aid.

Culture
The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, because of its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese empire. Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. The culture was, however, also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions. Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil.undefinedThe indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion.

Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's mix of native and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences. Examples are Feijoada, considered the country's national dish;undefinedand regional foods such as vatapá, moqueca, polenta and acarajé are popular in the various states. Brazil has a variety of candies such as brigadeiros ("brigadiers") and beijinhos ("kissies"). The national beverage is coffee and cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha.

Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century) to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism.

Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim in recent years.

Sports
Association football is by far the most popular sport; Brazil's national side has been the top-ranked team in the FIFA World Rankings for most years post-Doomsday, and is a heavy favorite to win the 2010 World Cup.

Most of the world's top active footballers - including Cristiano Ronaldo, Adriano, Kaka, Luis Fabiano, Maicon and Robinho - play in Brazil's domestic league.

Two of the best post-Doomsday players - Ronaldo and Ronaldhino - also hail from Brazil.

Domestic competition is split among national and state competitions. The national league is a pyramid system with four levels, and competition runs from April through December. The state championships are organized by the football federations of each state; the major state competitions run from January or February through April or May, while the smaller states w/o clubs playing in national competition have their seasons from April through October.

Some of the top clubs include (but not limited to) Palmeiras, Corinthians, Cruzeiro, Flamengo, Fluminense, Gremio, Internacional, Sao Paulo and Vasco da Gama.

After football, volleyball is the most popular sport, followed by basketball and motorsport.

Brazilian entrepreneurs, most notably former racing champion Emerson Fittipaldi, are at the forefront of a move to restart the Formula One auto racing series no later than 2013.

Jiu Jitsu - spearheaded by the Gracie family - is a martial-arts based sport that has been growing in popularity not just in Brazil but throughout the world, due to exhibitions in ANZC, Singapore, Mexico and Alpine Confederation.