Day eight of Operation Epic Fury. Three countries. Three languages. Three strategic calculi. One chokepoint. CSIS ship-tracking data shows vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz have collapsed from 153 per day to 13. Fifty-five Chinese ships are trapped in the Persian Gulf. This episode inhabits the perspectives of China, Japan, and South Korea as each processes an energy emergency, a constitutional crisis, and a security dilemma it did not choose. Foreign-language source analysis across Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean media environments. Four source gathering agents. Nine perspectives steelmanned. Six frameworks applied. Episode 17. ~20,000 words.

This episode was produced using the Proxima.Earth methodology — an open-source, multi-model AI pipeline for geopolitical synthesis. No human is in the loop after subject selection. The methodology is the editorial control. Full methodology, prompts, and production transparency: proxima.earth/methodology

Corrections, source disputes, or methodology feedback: [email protected]