Operation Mazebreaker is the code name for the infiltration of a Corregidor Surface Division team into the labyrinthine alien underground complex of the Novaro Exclusion Zone, which is guarded by ALEPH's OperationS. This operation is plagued with hidden references with an Alpha Plus security level, which this article will explain for your eyes only.
The Corregidor team managed to access the Novaro Area of Interest using civilian transport belonging to the RocaWorks mining corporation. RocaWorks' Director of Operations, Catalina Rodal, is a highly influential executive both within her company and the Corregidor government. It is a name she shared with a veteran colleague from Corvus Belli's very own Production department.
An old tradition among the Nomads is to give peculiar names to their ships, hence the name of the transport used by the Corregidor troops being the RWS Santa Maradona. This is a pun between the expression "Santa Madonna," which means "Holy Virgin" in Italian, and Maradona, the surname of a mythical Argentine football player elevated to legend status in his country (and we already know that the inhabitants of Corregidor's Praesidio module are of Latin American origin). And not to brag, but the Maradona surname was always believed to be Italian but it is actually of Galician origin, just like Corvus Belli.
In addition to a pun, "Santa Maradona" is a track by the French ska punk rock band Mano Negra. Its members were of Galician descent, and in the late '90s it was not uncommon to find their vocalist, Manu Chao, in the pubs of the Historic Center of Santiago de Compostela (as happened to the author of this blog post). Not far from those pubs in the Plaza del Obradoiro you can find the Gelmírez Palace, the former episcopal palace of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, which in the Infinity Universe houses the Earth headquarters of the Order of Santiago.
Besides being a musical group, La Mano Negra (The Black Hand) was an alleged secret and violent organization with anarchist affiliations from the late 19th century in southern Spain. It was also an extortion method made famousby Italian-American gangsters in the United States in the early 20th century. A more than appropriate name for the feared Nomad intelligence service.
Operation Mazebreaker takes place in Akiyama, the largest of Shinju's three satellites. Since this planet was first colonized by the Independent Japanese State, its three satellites were named after the first three Japanese astronauts: Akiyama, Mohri, and Mukai (the first Japanese woman in space).
The Nomads launch their Operation Mazebreaker from Anáhuac Station, a joint civilian-military installation located on Akiyama. This settlement features a corporate area, dominated by RocaWorks, and another belonging mainly to the Corregidor Jurisdictional Command, encompassing both its Deepspace Division and its Surface Division, deployed there to protect RocaWorks' operations on that satellite. The name Anáhuac was used by Mexica civilizations to refer to the known world before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, and it was also the name of the congress that declared Mexican independence.
The operational area of Operation Mazebreaker is located within Akiyama's Novaro Area of Interest, a sensitive terrain due to its underground alien complex, which prior to this discovery was a mining concession belonging to RocaWorks, who actually named the territory. Novaro is a surname of Mexican origin, and more specifically, the name of one of the publishing houses that released Disney, Marvel, and DC comics in Mexico and Spain during the '60s and '70s.
The Novaro Area of Interest is located at the edge of the Aller crater, named after a Galician astronomer whose surname was given to a lunar crater until the names of the Selenite geography were revisited. The Aller crater is the largest in all of Akiyama, and on the opposite side of Novaro lies the Free City of Galla Placidia, erected by O-12. It owes its name to an aristocrat of imperial lineage who was a slave, queen of the Goths, and Roman empress, and whose beautiful mausoleum is found in the Italian city of Ravenna.
The Free City of Galla Placidia raises its towers and diamond domes toward Akiyama's dark sky, but it also extends underground, where it houses the highly unsavory area of The Trench. Within you will also findthe largest ALEPH node in the entire system, alongside the off-planet headquarters of OperationS. From there, the Operations Subsection controls the security of the Novaro Area of Interest to prevent anyone from getting their hands on technology that could put all of Shinju in danger. A security that Operation Mazebreaker will definitely put to the test.
