Merida Island Base

Full Metal Panic! is set in a universe parallel to our own, based upon slight changes to actual world events during the late 20th and early 21st century. The changes in the world begin as early as 1947, with the creation of Amalgam, a group formed to influence politics towards peaceful resolutions and with a web-like structure of power so that no one person was truly in charge. Unfortunately, the closer to modern day, the more corrupt the group became, and adding to the strife in the world.

​Because of the incident during the initial startup of the TAROS at Yamsk11, many children born on December 24, 1981 at 11:50pm were given the ability to hear Whispers, which could grant them the ability to solve complex mathematical and scientific equations, creating what came to be known as Black Technology.

The story begins in 1998, in a world where the Cold War has yet to end. In the mid-1980s, President Reagan had war robots researched alongside his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which led to the invention of Arm Slaves. Some time later, as a result of this research, the mysteries of Cold Fusion were solved and the Palladium Reactor invented.

The Gulf War broke out around when Tajikistan gained its independence and was in civil war, and when the situation in Palestine was really heating up. It was around here where the Fifth Middle East Wars began. After that, a nuclear missile was launched at the northern region of Kuwait, killing nearly 100,000 people. No one could be sure who had launched it, though in the media it was blamed on Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Because of the lack of surety, however, the relations between the Arab Nations and Israel were irreparably damaged, and the war continued on to even the current day in the story. A half a year after the tragedy in Kuwait, Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union at the time, was assassinated before finalizing his perestroika, leaving the United States and Soviet Russia in a prolonged Cold War continuing on alongside the Fifth Middle East Wars.
 

China was separated by two government philosophies in the north and south, with Hong Kong at the center and being separated along the Yangtze River. North China is controlled by the People’s Liberation Committee, and South China is controlled by the Democratic Chinese Alliance. A peace treaty was reached within the divided China, with Kowloon being recognized as part of the North China territory, and Hong Kong Island to the South.