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Madero Huerta participated in the Howitzer Contest Part Two. Madero Huerta was written by MongoosePirate. The article is written about a pre-war Mexican general turned post-war dictator.
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| Madero Alejandro Huerta | |
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| General Information | |
| Date of Birth: | February 29, 2024 |
| Location Information | |
| Status Information | |
| Status: | Alive |
| Occupation: | Mexican general (formerly), freedom fighter (formerly), "generalissimo" of the New Mexican Army, ruler of Distrito Central, claims all Chihuahua |
| Physical Information | |
| Gender: | Male |
| Race: | Ghoul |
| Ethnicity: | Latino |
Madero Alejandro Huerta (born February 29, 2024) is the ghoul generalissimo of the New Mexican Army and is perhaps the last true relic of the pre-war Mexican government left on Earth. Not that that is a good thing. Nicknamed the Strongman of Chihuahua, Huerta abandoned his links to his country long ago and now rules his territory with an iron fist in the manner of an Old World caudillo. Right now, he is focused on bringing Chihuahua City (and in time, all of Chihuahua) underneath his boot. However, there once was much more that mattered to this man than his own self-interests.
Biography[]
Early Life and Army Career[]
Born somewhere in Durango on February 29, 2024, Madero Alejandro Huerta began his life in a poor family who lived in fear of the many cartels that ravaged the region. This motivated Huerta to join the army when he turned sixteen, becoming an officer.
It soon became clear that Huerta had a knack for leadership, and soon he began to rise in the ranks. Later, Huerta even married a wealthy heiress, María, and had two daughters that he rarely ever saw. Huerta used his newfound power to confront the cartels, rebels, and separatists that had begun to overtake Mexico by the late 2040s.
Huerta's shining hour came in October 5, 2050 when he cornered the infamous Diego Banderas, leader of the large narco-communist group el Perro Rojo de la Muerte in Ciudad Juárez. Banderas had been under siege for almost two months in the city, but on October 5, Banderas was killed by one of Huerta's units.
For his victory, Huerta was given a rare battlefield promotion and was made a general, with command of all Army units in the state of Chihuahua.
Huerta's victory in Ciudad Juárez was seen as a great thing in Mexico. But right across the border in El Paso, the battle was seen as evidence of Mexico's continued political and economic disintegration, which the U.S. thought only it could fix. The U.S. would act on this feeling soon, very soon.
Freedom Fighter[]
Soon after Huerta's triumph in 2050, the Americans decided that Mexico's continued instability was too much and for "the Chico's own good", the U.S. would invade Mexico. However, much of the instability in Mexico stemmed from the U.S. leveling crippling sanctions on the Mexican economy and its already near monopoly on the country oil through Poseidon Energy's Mexican subsidiary Petro-Chico. And it was only when Petro-Chico pipelines were diverted to the Mexican war effort did the Americans step in.
General Huerta, stationed in Chihuahua City, was warned that American military forces were building across the border in Fort Bliss, Texas for some reason. He waived it off as some kind of training exercise or something, not believing the Americans would possibly cross the border. Huerta was shocked when the news of the Americans' taking of Ciudad Juárez came to him. It was then that he began fortifying Chihuahua City against invasion knowing he could not face the Americans in the field, only to be told on the the radio by the Mexican president himself, to stand down. Furious at this sign of submission, Huerta issued a declaration of mass desertion on the radio, cursing both the American and Mexican governments for ruining his country.
Knowing he could not hold the city without government support, Huerta fled to the surrounding countryside with much of his army intact. However, even Huerta could not keep such a large force together with only words alone and many soldiers deserted and returned home in the first few months. This left Huerta with only about a thousand soldiers and very few resources.
But Huerta had not learned nothing during his war against the narco-terrorists of Mexico. He stayed in the shadows, avoiding open conflict with the American occupiers, blowing up supply depots and Petro-Chico pipelines, ambushing patrols in rural regions. This led to the Americans pursuing him more vigorously, capturing him in 2053. However, Huerta somehow manage to escape before his execution with the help of a patriotic Mexican jailer (who was later executed). He was captured again in 2059 and 2066 and imprisoned in the infamous Camp Pershing on high security but managed to escape both times along with other prisoners. When the Sino-American War began in 2066, the U.S. diverted most of their troops from Mexico, and Huerta stepped up his attacks on the remaining U.S. troops, seeking to sap their morale. The U.S. troops responded by sending out death squads to root out rebels, which only drove more people into the arms of Huerta.
As Huerta continued to fight guerrilla warfare, he became almost legendary to the locals of Chihuahua, called el Soldado Viejo or the Old Soldier, as he fought for such a long time. Huerta's generosity to the poor, as well as his boisterous, down to earth attitude, endeared him to many. His legend became so attached to the resistance in northern Mexico that he remained leader of the Mexican resistance in Chihuahua for more than twenty five years, even as the attacks on the U.S. armed forces became less spectacular and more guerrillas were sentenced to death by firing squad. By 2077, Huerta was down to three hundred men but still fought on.
Ghoulification[]
October 23, 2077 came almost peacefully to General Huerta. He was drinking coffee in his camp tent when word came over the radio that nuclear missiles were falling in California and bombers were heading west with their nukes, in Mexico as well as America. Huerta, confident that they were in too a remote region to be effected, ordered his men to stay on the radio and be on full alert. Before long, there was word of bombs falling in Mexico City and Ciudad Juárez. Then, nothing. The radio went dead from the EMP released by the bombs, and the electric lights went out too.
For the next week, Huerta and his guerrillas tried to turn on the radio and scout out the surrounding area for refugees. To Huerta's surprise, there were very few people on the roads and those who were were either very badly scarred or very heavily armed.
One day, rain began to fall. On closer examination, the rain appeared to be black and contaminated with radioactive material. When some of the men began to fall sick, Huerta took refuge in caves that dotted the countryside. Staying there for the next few days, Huerta and his men emerged to find the desert gray and devoid of any plant life and very few animals.
It was then that Huerta decided to scout out Chihuahua City to see if there was anything left. Taking about thirty of his best men, Huerta marched north to inspect Chihuahua City. Before he even got there, the general could see the smoke on the horizon.
On arrival, Huerta found that the city had, for the most part, been leveled with very few buildings left standing. Chihuahua City had been hit by no fewer than four medium yield nuclear bombs that had left plentiful radiation.
The general was greeted by ghouls, who he assumed were just burn victims and not results of radiation (at least partly). Huerta was kind enough to the ghouls, offering them medical assistance at his camp. Several refused, saying they were too far gone, but some accepted his offer. For the next two days, Huerta searched the irritated ruins of Chihuahua City for supplies and weapons.
As the expedition continued to explore, they began to feel the effects of radiation sickness as well. Pieces of skin and hair began to fall off. Huerta decide to return back to camp. After all, one of his soldiers, Valdez, had fallen into some radioactive sludge and nearly drowned. Then he started to glow.
Huerta returned to camp a ragged mess with his sick troops and a couple of ragged ghouls in tow. The men that had stayed in the camp were alarmed by these apparent monsters and the fact their commander appeared to be sick of an unknown disease. Noticing this, that night at dinner Huerta gave them a rousing speech on the merits of comradery and need to restore Mexico as a country and to protect its people. Soon after the speech was finished, Valdez transformed into a Glowing One in the hospital and almost instantly went feral. Killing the ghouls and humans that were with him in the field hospital with his bare hands, Valdez charged through the camp spreading radiation poisoning. Eventually, he came to the the mess where the men were eating and broke in. Warned by the noise, Huerta shot the Glowing One himself.
It was found the next day that many soldiers had fled the camp in panic when Valdez turned, fearing some type of outbreak. Several more men found out that they had radiation poisoning as well and were beginning to turn into ghouls. The non-effected soldiers were alarmed by this but decided to stay with their comrades.
For Huerta next few months began the transition to becoming a ghoul. Huerta lost almost all his hair, which he had kept even into his golden years. As the years dragged on, more of Huerta's human soldiers began to drift away, even as his ghoul soldiers remained loyal. By 2090, all but three of Huerta's unmutated men, his most loyal, had deserted. Almost forty ghouls soldiers remained. By now, Huerta had fallen into kind of a depression, what with losing his family (most likely), his men, and his country because of the Great War.
On February 29, 2096, his seventy fourth birthday, Huerta lost hope. Wishing his human compadres goodbye and goodwill, Huerta invited his ghoul soldiers to follow him to the ruins of Chihuahua City so they would (presumably) die of radiation poisoning. And with that, Huerta and his troops marched off into the ruins.
And to their surprise, none of them died (they did not know that radiation actually heals ghouls). Huerta was astonished. This was a second chance! A new day for all of them! Huerta almost became a whole new person, his depressed state gone and an enthusiastic, manic individual there in its place.
Huerta and his remaining soldiers decided to take up residence in the ruins, which was mostly empty because of the still high radioactivity. They found Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua (the old Governor's Palace) had minimal damage to its structure, so they claimed it as their own.
For the next hundred years, Huerta and his men basically squatted on Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua, scavenging and keeping a watch on the surrounding area. Huerta, in his free time, wrote an autobiography and a Mexican perspective on the American invasion of Mexico, both with certain embellishments. Also, Huerta decided that restoring Mexico would foolish and that he could make his own destiny, not try to restore a failed state. So, Huerta decided to make his own flag to fly over Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua instead of the Mexican flag. He made it, and it flew. To start his new tiny nation, Huerta claimed the city as his. His men were at first reluctant to abandon any hope of restoring Mexico, but over time accepted it.
By 2200, the radiation levels within Chihuahua City had fallen below lethal levels. Human squatters, prospectors, and travelers began entering the once untouched city and picked over it. Huerta, alarmed by the intrusion into what he perceived to be his territory, sent out soldiers to set up barricades at the city entrances to block entrance. This did little to stop the flow of humans into Chihuahua City but certainly showed that Huerta was not a pushover. In time, Huerta fell back to what he called "el Distrito Central" of the Central District, where he formed a stable area in the coming chaos of the wasteland behind a defensible perimeter. Factions like Los Esqueleto began to move into the city.
In 2241, Huerta started allowing humans to live in his "city", as long as they pledged their allegiance to him. Many poor paisanos fleeing north from abusive landowners in Cattle Country agreed to swear allegiance to Huerta. Huerta let them build housing near Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua and him and his ghoul soldiers protected them from raider bands and scavengers in exchange for forms of tribute: women and supplies (the women mostly for Huerta). They even built a school, with Huerta's biography as required reading, of course. This arrangement went well enough until 2258.
New Mexican Army[]
In 2256, the dictator Caesar was consolidating his control over New Mexico and destroying tribes, raider bands, and any who opposed him. This war had begun to herd many people south, towards Mexico. Many refugees walked the highways through the shattered cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. Among these refugees were raiders, dangerous ones too, and like locusts they were coming south.
Huerta, safe and comfortable in Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua with no rival powerful enough to oppose him, did not expect an attack on his city, but it came on April 7, 2258. Raiders scaled the walls of set up by Huerta and killied the guards. Then, they moved into el Distrito Central and set about sacking, burning, and looting it.
Huerta was in bed with a woman at the time. He was alerted by his Lieutentant o'Neill (an Irish-Mexican ghoul) that invaders were sacking the town. Hastily putting on his pants and grabbing an assault rifle he kept as his personal weapon, Huerta personally led the palace guard into battle bare-chested, which caused some of the raiders to throw up. Eventually the raiders, tried by Huerta's attack and already up to their arms in loot, began to slip away from the battle. In another hour, the battle was over.
Huerta was furious. The Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua was unharmed but most of his citizens' homes and even their school were leveled by fire, and several of his old ghoul comrades were dead. Finding some injured raiders, Huerta had them beheaded for pillaging and stuck their heads on the fence posts of Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua.
Huerta's panicked citizens wanted assurance from their leader, so Huerta gave it: he would organize a pre-War style army to combat the raider threat. That would mean using humans as combat fighters, no problem. Many people offered to join the new army, either because they had nothing left or to avenge some killed or violated relative in the sack.
Huerta used his ghoul comrades as trainers for his army and supplied with as many weapons he could scrounge, from spears to machetes to handguns. He had them walk in formation as the old Mexican Army did and made them do drills. By 2260, Huerta had an army of almost two hundred trained and ready.
The raiders had watched this spectacle with slight bemusement. A ghoul running a human army? What's next, a talking deathclaw? They were left more bewildered when Huerta and his army marched down the road one night and attacked several raider encampments. Not expecting to be attacked by such a larger force, the raiders were put to flight and Huerta and his army scavenged much of the raiders' abandoned gear and returned to el Distrito Central victorious. Huerta christened his army (ironically since it was just used to fight off New Mexican raiders) the New Mexican Army, with him as their general.
Betrayal[]
In the following years, Huerta set about improving the New Mexican Army, creating distinct uniforms and a command structure, with himself and his ghoul comrades at the top and the human foot soldiers at the bottom. Also, Huerta began marching the New Mexican Army into different portions of Chihuahua City to quell gang wars and to root out raider bands who were causing trouble. El Distrito Central was rebuilt, albeit smaller and more compact, after the sack. A Catholic chapel was built in 2263 with Brother Oso, Huerta's old ghoul chaplain, as the priest. But instead of God, the residents of el Distrito Central had started to become set on committing themselves to Madero Huerta, completely and utterly.
An almost religious cult of personality was beginning to build around Huerta, since the residents of el Distrito Central were raised from birth to think of him as their wise old leader and read a book of his great deeds in school. Pre-war photographs of Huerta were distributed at school and were hung from anywhere that could hold a hook. Some people actually memorized his book, front to back. This devotion at first disturbed Huerta, but after a while, he began to like it. Why not?
Also, Huerta's treatment of raiders began to become harsher. Since slavery was officially illegal in el Distrito Central, it was easier just to kill them. Whole encampments were wiped out, even the children, because they were raiders or related to them. In 2264, more than a hundred raiders and their families holed up in Cathedral of Chihuahua were killed in a firefight in that ended in the old Cathedral being set aflame. Cruelty was another problem. Although the New Mexican Army did use torture on occasion, it was usually only when a prisoner needed to be questioned harshly. But when younger members of the New Mexican Army began pitting prisoners against each other in gladiatorial matches, Huerta not only allowed it against the wishes of most of his old ghoul comrades but endorsed it. Soon afterwards in 2266, there was a gladiator pit built near the school and schoolchildren were actually betting their allowances on bloodsports.
To most of the ghoul cadre of the New Mexican Army, it had become clear that the situation had gotten out of hand, and Huerta was going in the wrong direction. So they formulated a plan: they would try to reason with Huerta and if that didn't work, the conspirators would have to kill him and take control for themselves. Led by O'Neill, Huerta's closest friend and lieutenant, the ghouls entered the Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua on December 23, 2267, to negotiate with the general.
Entering Huerta's bedroom, they found him passed out drunk on the floor. Some of the ghouls suggested they kill him right there and then, but by fate, o'Neill refused to do that and roused Huerta. His comrades then sat him down and informed him that his rule had become debauched, perhaps even more debauched than the American regime they had fought so many years before. Huerta protested, saying that all he had done was in the name of rebuilding a new nation. His comrades rebuked him, each telling him what he had done wrong. Then, it seemed that Huerta realized his error and thanked his old friends, promising that starting tomorrow, things would be different.
The next day, all of the ghouls that had spoken ill of Huerta, even o'Neill, were arrested in their beds and set to the square outside Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua for judgement. A large crowd from el Distrito Central gathered to watch.
Not wasting any time, Huerta, without listening to any of their protests, pronounced the conspirators guilty of treason and sentenced them to death by firing squad. Many say they saw o'Neill cry at that moment, which should not be possible since tear ducts are uncommon among ghouls. But it could be seen why. The general they had fought for, killed for, and rebuild the county for had betrayed them and was throwing them away like a used Nuka-Cola bottle. After that, the conspirators were lined up against a wall and shot. Huerta declared that now he would lead as not just general, but generalissimo of the New Mexican Army and el Distrito Central.
That day was called the Christmas Eve Purge and after that, internal dissent in el Distrito Central was silenced for the next two decades. The only remaining ghouls were now Father Oso, who had refused to participate in the conspiracy on the grounds that threats of violence were counterproductive and three other ghouls who were too scared to follow.
Generalissimo Huerta[]
Huerta did outlaw the gladiator pits in 2270, but that was all. Executions became rare, but when they happened, they were public and often, very bloody. After the Christmas Eve Purge, Huerta kept his city under a tight watch, introducing a secret police called el Ojo de Águila (the Eagle's Eye) in 2275. Also, he began to make plans of incorporating more land into el Distrito Central and to step up his attacks on the various factions of Chihuahua City. Huerta already had a lot of influence in much of the city and had spies throughout. In 2276, Huerta led a construction effort that incorporated several blocks of more space for el Distrito Central while fending of raiders and comancheros. These neighborhoods became known as Distrito Nuevo and became on average poorer than Distrito Central proper.
In 2278, el Ojo de Águila was disbanded after one of their sleeper agents was activated in el Distrito Central's schoolhouse, killing several schoolchildren. In response to this public scandal, Huerta publically condemned the organization, calling it "subversive". This caused many agents to go rogue and offer their services to others in the city. Huerta rightly worried that his former operatives may betray him and leak his defense strategies to other groups. To prevent this, Huerta assigned bounties on the heads of all remaining of el Ojo de Águila operatives.
In early 2279, the famous "Comanchero General" Johnny West rode into Chihuahua City with a band of over one hundred men, raiding chem caravans and raiding camps loyal to the chem gangs and New Mexican Army. Through scouts and spies, Huerta saw that West's comanchero band was as large as half of New Mexican Army and larger than his forces currently stationed in Distrito Central. Fearing another sack, Huerta withdrew most of his men back into Distrito Central for its defense. And soon enough, up came riding Johnny West with about seventy five men looking to sack Distrito Central. Huerta, commanding on the walls, ordered the New Mexican Army to lay down a withering fire on the comancheros from their fortified position. The comancheros attempted to scale the walls and dynamite the gate, but the gate was not destroyed and the attempt to scale the walls were met by bullets and bayonets. At the end of the day, West and his remaining twelve men limped back to the main band and left the New Mexican Army with minimal casualties and another victory under its belt.
Huerta's victory over the "Comanchero General" sent him and all of Distrito Central into a wild celebration, one that could be seen from miles around. After that, Huerta began to draw up plans: the conquest of Chihuahua City and the defeat of all the cartels in one fell blow. From there, Huerta plans to take all of Chihuahua as his Distrito Gran (a Grand District).
War on Chems[]
However, something was foul in Huerta's little kingdom: dissent was building and the chem cartels had infiltrated Distrito Central.
Ever since the Christmas Eve Purge in 2267, dissent in Distrito Central had been muted. However, the schoolhouse shooting sparked a new flame, as some blamed Huerta's negligence for the incident. Some posters of Huerta were vandalized and copies of his books were torn apart. Small signs of disrespect but still significant. Political resistance was building in Distrito Central, but it had no teeth. The chem cartels did.
After expanding the town in 2276, Huerta had absorbed a lot of former chem cartel territory and had inadverntantly let them into his once chem-free "paradise". By 2281, chem cartel members freely sold their wares in the poorer parts of Distrito Nuevo, paying off the more corrupt higher-ups in New Mexican Army a hefty sum to turn a blind eye. Some even openly bore firearms in their neighborhoods, a flagrant violation of Distrito Central's laws.
By the time Generalissimo Huerta found out about the extent of the chem cartels in his town in 2281, things were already bad. Immediately scuttling his plans for conquest in Chihuahua, Huerta turned his attention inwards towards Distrito Nuevo. The Generalissimo declared a "War on Chems" and once again cleared out the upper ranks of the New Mexican Army for charges of corruption. After making new officers, Huerta sent them into Distrito Nuevo to enforce a military occupation.
The inital occupation was overtly violent, with some of the more stupid members of the chem cartels confronting the New Mexican Army directly and were killed off very fast. The Butcher-Shop Battle (2281) was the bloodiest of these confrontations, with eight cartel members, three New Mexican Army soldiers, and nine civilians dead.
By 2283, these direct confrontations had died down and the cartels had moved on to subversion, dealing their chems in secret and working with political dissidents to promote resistance to Huerta's regime, even recruiting some former el Ojo de Águila members to aid them. This resistance movement, nicknamed the Narco-Republican Movement, posed a serious threat according to Huerta, and he moved to stamp it out with maximum prejudice.
Currently in 2287, Huerta is still engaged in a street-level war with the Narco-Republican Movement. The Generalissimo is winning the war but the fight for Distrito Central is diverting his attention from stemming the growth of the Esqueleto, raiders, and the other chem cartels outside his walls, letting them grow stronger as he grows weaker. Huerta can only hope that no one takes advantage of his disunity and adds to his problems.
Personality[]
A bombastic man, Huerta is very charismatic and is a fantastic public speaker. However, he often does not know what to say to motivate people on hand and must write out his speeches before he gives them. Huerta also has a weakness for liquor and women, weaknesses that have almost brought his downfall a few too many times.
Huerta also can act sophisticated and possesses certain Machiavellian values. After aquiring a taste for power, he does not let go easily, as seen in the the Christmas Eve Purge. Huerta is not a stranger to abandoning all he once believed in to gain power.
Appearance[]
A rather fat short man, Huerta never looked intimidating, even when he became an almost fleshless ghoul. That doesn't mean Huerta can't dress well. The generalissimo is almost never seen out of a snappy uniform adorned with his ancient pre-War medals.
Huerta also prefers to deemphasize the fact that he is a ghoul by using makeup and mock noses, which both are poor substitutes for the real thing.
Notes[]
- Huerta has written two books, A Long Campaign:The Life of Madero Alejandro Huerta and The Second Mexican American War and the Resistance that Followed It (2051-2077). In Distrito Central, they are hailed as classics and are required reading. On the outside, there are many differing opinions on the books, varying from praising their informative aspects to condemning their uses in propaganda to using them to level out table legs.
- Madero Huerta was inspired by a myriad number of dictators throughout history and in fiction, but he is most closely modeled after Joseph Stalin, the former premier of the Soviet Union and Immortan Joe, from the movie Mad Max: Fury Road.
Gallery[]
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