The first aircraft produced by state-owned Marquette Airworks, the Defender earned the company a reputation for light air-superiority planes despite problems with the original model. Dixie and the ISA regularly target the Des Moines, Iowa factory complex, braving return fire from two squadrons of Defenders and Defiants as well as massed flak batteries. The Defiant is Marquette’s second design, and has so far performed reasonably well.

Marquette’s current project is a marked change for the company: an extended-range fighter-bomber, presumably intended to strike targets deep in the ISA. However, the decision by the People’s Committee to build the Yakovlev 4 design, recently licensed from Russia, at a new plant in Rapid City has prompted outrage among the citizens. Only the threat from nearby Lakota has prevented widespread protest.