A Hundred Nations, One Throne

China's infamous 996 Working Hour System. Arrive at 9:00 AM, leave at 9:00 PM, six days a week, with overtime taken for granted.

Even in Seoul, a city where the lights never go out, such a schedule would make anyone shake their head in disbelief. Yet, shockingly, this very system was alive and well at a certain university in South Korea.

"Why on earth isn't it separating?"

"I think the catalyst is the problem..."

"How does a membrane separation take over twenty-four hours! Go grab that polymer membrane we synthesized last week! Just in case, set up the experiment."

"But we don't have the characterization data for that one yet..."

"Forget it! We don't have time. What are you going to tell the professor tomorrow?"

The clock was already ticking past 11:30 PM. Yet, not a single one of us even dreamed of going home.

'If we fail this time, we're absolutely screwed...'

'I want to sleep, but the anxiety is keeping me wide awake!'

Lying on a cot, flipping through research papers while waiting for the experimental results to come out—this was just another ordinary night in a chemical engineering graduate lab.

I heard that in the natural sciences, students flock to graduate school because they can't find jobs. Engineering is the exact opposite. Most engineering students are busy plotting their escape into the workforce as quickly as possible; they rarely consider grad school.

As a result, engineering graduate students are few and far between. It takes a special kind of lunatic—someone obsessed not just with chemistry, but with chemical engineering—to end up here. Every single one of them is a one-man army. Except for me.

'I'm only double-majoring in chemical engineering, you absolute psychopaths!'

I had never had any affinity for chemistry in my life. If I had to go into STEM, I would have preferred something cool, like mathematics or physics.

'Wait, is it me? Am I the craziest one here?'

To be completely honest, I did feel a bit insane myself. After all, I had entered university as a philosophy major. Korean Literature, History, Philosophy—the unholy trinity of unemployability in the humanities. If you commit to one of those three, you have to at least double-major in economics or STEM to survive.

"Computer Science? Why is the competition so fierce? Is it because ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every desperate soul like me is piling in? Mechanical Engineering isn't any easier either..."

The only department with low enough competition for me to squeeze into was chemical engineering. And so...

"All I know how to do is chug soju and ponder half-baked philosophy... Argh! I don't want to get a job!"

That was how I stumbled blindly into the life of a graduate student. You might ask, if I loved philosophy so much, why did I join a chemical engineering lab?

'Because I didn't want to starve to death, that's why!'

People say the only place a philosopher can find a job is in ancient Greece. But even that is wrong. Philosophers couldn't get jobs in ancient Greece either. Historically, philosophy was a luxury reserved for those whose bellies were not just full, but bursting. From Nietzsche to Plato, every famous philosopher was someone who had absolutely no worries about making a living, leaving them free to obsess over 'trivial things' like the meaning of existence.

'This doesn't suit me at all! I'm going crazy!'

In the end, I pulled an all-nighter that day. Only after barely scraping together one completed experiment was I finally allowed to go home. Yet, even then, my research activities weren't over. It was a hobby of sorts.

I was already dying inside from a major that didn't fit me at all. If I didn't have this hobby, I felt like I would lose my mind. No matter how exhausted I was, I had to dedicate at least an hour to it before going to sleep. My hobby? Writing posts about philosophy and history on online communities.

Naturally, given the dry subject matter, my view counts were pathetic. But occasionally, a real professor or some monstrously knowledgeable history and philosophy buff would show up to leave a comment.

"Hehehe..."

The sheer joy of it would stretch my mouth into a massive grin. Being a natural-born attention seeker, nothing pleased me more than people calling me smart.

My topic this time was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was an exploration of philosophy through a historical methodology—much like how Nietzsche studied the history of morals to understand ethics, or how Foucault studied the history of madness to understand insanity.

'Does it make any sense to kill each other over something as trivial as ethnicity? How do you even define an ethnic group? What is identity? What do we actually perceive ourselves to be?'

This short thesis was born from those very questions. To ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠write it, I had dug through countless historical examples of ethnic conflict. In Yugoslavia, there was a brutal history of neighbors slaughtering neighbors simply because they belonged to different ethnic groups. On the other hand, the United States, despite its diverse ethnic makeup, had never escalated to such extreme, localized bloodshed. And the Soviet Union? The moment anyone tried to divide people by ethnicity, they were shipped straight to the gulag. In that sense, the most peculiar case of all was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

'These guys are bizarre too. It wouldn't have been surprising if a civil war or a massacre had broken out at any second. How on earth did they remain a single nation?'

Granted, nationalism within the Austro-Hungarian Empire was always on the verge of exploding. They didn't call the Balkans the "powder keg of Europe" for nothing, and in the end, that very nationalism triggered World War I. Yet, despite everything, they managed to coexist. Though highly unstable, a delicate political balance kept ethnic conflicts in check. At the same time, a mysterious sense of shared community—the identity of being an "Imperial citizen"—had begun to sprout.

'Hmm... Maybe the empire didn't actually have to be torn to shreds.'

The Austro-Hungarian Empire felt like a nation standing at a historical crossroads. It could have become a federal republic uniting various exclusive cultural spheres, much like India. It could have absorbed minority ethnicities around a dominant ruling class, like China or Russia. Or it could have forged an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠entirely new identity altogether, like the "immigrant" melting pot of the United States.

I immediately poured my attention into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For days, I drafted all sorts of alternate history scenarios, finally completing a post that defined national and ethnic identity.

'I actually made this one pretty entertaining. I hope it gets a lot of views!'

Though the post ended up longer than expected, I managed to pack in a wealth of details, including the empire's class system alongside ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the ethnic issues. Surprisingly, the best response came from overseas forums. Perhaps it was because the Austro-Hungarian Empire wasn't very well-known in Korea. The comment section was particularly lively with discussions on nationalism.

I carefully read through each and every comment, until I stumbled upon the most striking one.

Damn, this guy really knew how to make a history nerd's heart swell with grandiosity. I immediately typed out a reply.

"You bet your sweet ass I can."

The exact moment I posted the reply...

"W-wait... What's... happening to my body...?"

Did I accidentally inhale some toxic fumes in this chemical-ridden lab? I felt a bizarre sensation, as if my entire body was being sucked into a vacuum.

And with those incomprehensible words floating before my eyes, I lost consciousness.