The War of Mexican Intervention? (~1995) [Archive] - Page 2

Blochead

May 18th, 2006, 09:11 PM

Thanks for the questions and the continued reading,

Israel: I'm going to be touching on Israel in the 2052-2056 update, but I probably should add a history of israel article along with some other stuff to cover loose threads... It's still independent, but there is a smaller proportion of Muslims after many left to the Alliance of God and the Caliphate during their few decades of prosperity.

Ice Caps: Some of it has melted, but settlement is still out of the question, at least in Antarctica. Most of the melt has actually occured up north with the sea ice, though Alaska is having some trouble updating its infrastructure.

Sea level rise is noticeable, but cities in danger have had plenty of time to update their 'defenses' against it, though Venice is struggling.

However, the Antarctic treaty has 'expired' (it does sometime in the 2040s, if I remember correctly), and virtually none of the signing nations (save Norway and a few others) have agreed to re-surrender their right to claims. South America (backed by the USE, India, and the ACSU) and Australia (backed by the 'anglosphere' and SEATO) both have plans for Antarctica.

In the North Pole, the PAC nations and Russia are the main players, though the PAC to a larger extent because of more availible islands to set up basing.

Militech: Lasers are fairly well along, though they need significant power generation. They are primarily used as anti-air weapons, and can be found in roles ranging from Point-defense to strategic-level air defense (nuclear-reactor powered lasers on large aircraft or ships).

Supercavitation is widely used in torpedoes, but due to the inefficiency of supercavitation on submarines and the negation in traditional-role sub warfare, it has never been fielded on a vehicle. Current trends for subs are the ability to dive much deeper rather than move faster, underwater is where stealth technology is most widely used, especially because the advances in air-defense mean that ballistic missiles or aircraft are too easily interceptible to be effective 'deterrents' or conventional warfighting platforms on a strategic scale. A large submarine filled with long-range, low-flying cruise missiles is the standard for deterrence.

Another development is the fact that defensive armor and systems are beginning to outstrip the capabilities of offensive systems. Though today offensive systems have more of an edge, eventually it will swing back. While more mobile, lighter forces were supreme in the 2020s-2030s, in the 2040s the advancement of nanotechnology-refining for armor has made it difficult to mount even railguns efficient enough for killing tanks on smaller platforms. The lightest military-grade nuclear reactor is still a few tons, so MBT+ sized tanks are considered effective in modern military strategy, especially after the war between the USE and the Caliphate, where newer tanks were easily able to destroy more mobile mechanized (as in mounted, but they have PA too) infantry focused units.

If I wanted to be more 'sci-fi', there would be two possible 'super units', either I develop a compact fusion reactor and have Heinlenesque PA infantry, or I go Bolo and have supertanks. In reality I'll probably have neither, but there's a looong war coming up and who knows what'll come out to fight it?

Civvies in space: They're there for commercial reasons, mostly. Automated mining is the big thing, and centrifugal habitats are common so crews can be cycled. Probably be a few decades at least before anyone except a few wealthy eccentrics and corporate crews are living solely in space.

CalBear

May 18th, 2006, 09:59 PM

Interesting technical update.

Remember the old saw: In the battle between armor & warhead, in the long run warhead always wins.

Blochead

May 18th, 2006, 10:16 PM

Interesting technical update.

Remember the old saw: In the battle between armor & warhead, in the long run warhead always wins.

In the long run, yes. However, I think even at 2050 we've got a ways to go before you see light vehicles mounting a nuke reactor powerful enough for a railgun that can outrange a tank's and overpower its armor.

Blochead

May 31st, 2006, 09:36 PM

[2052-2056]

[Americas]

The UP President Lombardi handily wins the 2052 election, though by a slimmer margin than expected. As part of spending his ‘political capital’, he brings much needed reform to the US education system, especially the tertiary education program. He also decides that with the ‘realities of North American integration’, that English must be made the official language of the US. However, the law did not apply to the commonwealths of Mexico and Chiapas, though English was firmly established as the ‘language of the American Dream’ by the 2050s.

Lombardi, however, was widely disdained by many for his foreign policy decisions. In 2053 he brokered bilateral trade agreements with the Republic of Quebec and Colombia that reduced the ‘non-market tariff’ established by earlier EP administrations. He also cut military aid to Chile, a very controversial decision that was intended to ease tensions in South America, but was seen by many as trying to placate the Community of Nations.

Lombardi’s emphasis on ‘multipolar stability’ and the importation of products from USE allied nations resulted in the EP gaining a significant majority in the 2054 mid-term elections.

In South America, the UN and CoN began the very first ‘first-world’ executions of the ‘Peaceful Market’ acts, where all major members of the CoN resolved to ban ‘mercenary establishments’ and begin ‘disarmament’ outside the proper military and law enforcement channels. Citing the resurgence of violence in the Guyana Zone and reports of ‘US-funded militias’ in Colombia and Bolivia, the CoN was quick to reduce gun ownership to a minimum among their populations. When the UN saw the success of these measures, many Americans began to look on with worry, and the NRA restarted their old gun-awareness campaigns.

The CoN also handed over the ‘legal jurisdiction’ of the Guyana zone to the United Nations, though in reality it was still CoN troops patrolling the area. The United Nations itself now had governance over land, and many conspiracy theorists marked it as the first signs of a CoN lead ‘world government’ that would take over the sovereign nations of the world.

[Europe]

The Community of Nations establishes their headquarters in Brussels, near the UN building that is slowly growing in influence and importance. As the US and allies begin to show more and more disrespect for UN mandates, many talk of removing the UN headquarters from New York City. Former USE Minister of State Eugene de Lesseps is elected CoN Executive Officer. As a response to the reflare of violence in the Balkans, it was also declared a CoN governed zone. Local firearms and equipment were confiscated by CoN peacekeepers.

In response, the New European Initiative allowed Greece into the fold, and began staging troops in the non CoN occupied Balkan zones.

The issue of the Balkan annexation by the international body of the CoN was hotly debated, despite the veto by the United Kingdom or US in all attempts for the UN to govern territory, the CoN simply took jurisdiction and passed it on to the UN.

[Asia]

In 2053, the de-facto dictator of the Russian Federation, President Aleksei Kerenkov, began stationing troops along the Sino-Mongolian border, arguing that their southern neighbor lacked the resources to provide defense for itself. Tensions were only heightened when new resource explorations yielded greater Russian presence around Sakhalin, angering Japan.

By 2055, when Russian and Chinese troops were routinely engaging in heavily-armed games of chicken and a seeming phony war on the border, the Russian reunification vote had failed. Citing the increase in SEATO military buildups, Kerenkov called for increased rates of conscription.

The influx of troops to the border did not bode well for Sino-Russian relations. When Russia deployed missile launching platforms to Sakhalin, Japan and SEATO filed complaint after complaint to the United Nations, which acknowledged, some speculate under USE and CoN pressure, that their actions were legal, and offered negotiations. Russia said it would refuse to make any concessions unless Japan dropped their claims.

On a freezing night in November of 2054, Japanese hypersonic bombers penetrated Russian airspace before they had time to react, launching cruise missiles into Vladivostok and the outlying military bases, as well as the Russian military positions in Sakhalin. Within a few hours after SEATO space assets and the ROJAF destroyed Russian air defenses in their aerial blitzkrieg, aircraft brought light mechanized infantry into the islands, overwhelming Russian troops initially, until they were worn down after a week of fighting.

However, the Russians were not passive in this conflict. Theater-range kinetic missiles shook Japan; later China when SEATO assets were pulled into the conflict. A brief naval battle erupted when the Russian carrier forces attempted to launch an attack on the Japanese home islands, but it was quickly quashed by a joint Sino-Japanese task force. Russian soldiers on the Chinese border fared much better, inflicting heavy casualties in their slow retreat, but SEATO had finally proven itself as a cohesive fighting unit, despite doubts over Sino-Japanese leadership.

Bombing campaigns began over major industrial and military centers, and soon the Russian Federation was pushed back from the coast. The war raged on for almost a year, and on September 5th, 2055, Kerenkov and his staff were killed by Russian officers sympathetic to liberal democracy and angry with his conduct during the war that had killed nearly 90,000 Russian soldiers.

Setting up a Russian Confederation backed government, the new nation agreed to hand over the Sakhalin islands if SEATO would agree to joint exploration, and assist the Federation with the construction of peaceful infrastructure and provide humanitarian aid. As the richest single alliance, SEATO agreed.

During this time, India joined the Community of Nations and strengthened its ties with the United States of Europe, and in 2053 it solidified itself against Persia and began supplying military aid to Kurdistan, in response to NEI and US aid in Turkey. However, the Turkish Civil War ended in 2056, with a shaky coalition of military leaders establishing what many hoped would be an interim government.

Persia, during this time, became increasingly agitated with India, who blamed Kurdish uprisings on their support for the ‘illegitimate group of warlords and rogues’ the rest of the world called Kurdistan. Many were talking of the return of the 12th Imam, and soon the Ayatollah and radical Muslims were stirring the Shi’a into fanaticism; and talk began of taking the Arabian Peninsula.

Egypt and Arabia announced that they had recovered the vast majority of Caliphate nuclear arms during the breakup, and were forming an Arab alliance to prevent Persia or ‘foreign interlopers’ from violating their sphere.

Israel engaged with a brief, three day conflict with Syria during the tumult in early May 2056, prompting the Persian armies to gobble up the nation as a puppet state. Israel itself also deployed naval assets outside the Suez Canal’s Mediterranean passage when a suicide bomber attacked an Israeli freighter in waiting, and adopted a doctrine that assured the larger nations of the world that they would ensure that the Suez would remain open despite the instability in Arabia.

SEATO also had a hand in the events in Southwest Asia. During the early 2050s, the Norinco QZ-38 and various knockoffs had swamped arms markets in the ‘Greater Middle East’. Despite the gun’s superior manufacturing quality when put next to locally produced rifles with the exceptions of Turkey and Persia, they were often called the ‘Kalashnikov of the 21st century’, and were a stark reminder of SEATO’s ‘merchant of death’, politically apathetic weapons vending in the unstable regions of the world that so angered the CoN and United Nations.

[Africa]

Africa was mostly quiet, though mainly because of strict ACSU media controls in crisis zones of the Congo and Nigeria. South Africa did formally announce their ‘merger’ with Lesotho and Namibia as the United States of Africa, following in the footsteps of their European cousins.

CoN power in Africa expanded significantly, with major arms seizures pervading the member nations, with UN funding. Outside of the ‘crisis zones’, which were turned over to CoN/UN leadership, crime rates were incredibly low, and the post-war economy of the ACSU had come into full boom.

When Somalia and Eritrea erupted into violence, the CoN/UN was quick to jump in with an ‘interim’ governing body. By 2056, the CoN/UN coalition had added a significant amount of territory under ‘international interim governance’, on nearly every continent. Some nations facing a lack of stable government in West Africa were even asking for CoN/UN interim rule.

Thande

May 31st, 2006, 09:39 PM

The UP President Lombardi
:D Brilliant. Seeing that in the middle of such a comparatively serious and detailed TL made me laugh out loud.

Blochead

May 31st, 2006, 10:40 PM

Heh, I was wondering when people'd pick up on that. I was just looking for a generic Italian name, it didn't hit me till later.

Blochead

June 2nd, 2006, 07:11 PM

http://img289.imageshack.us/img289/1893/pac6jx.png

Possible PAC flag.

JP_Morgan

June 3rd, 2006, 10:40 PM

Jesus H. Christ, why did you have to make the printing so small?:mad: Nice job, otherwise. This one will definitely win a Turtledove for sure

Blochead

June 4th, 2006, 07:36 PM

Yeah, I'd have fixed that if the edit wasn't wonky. I guess the font change in MSWord must not have carried over well to here... And thanks : )

Raymann

June 5th, 2006, 03:53 AM

You're using parts of the NORAD emblem for the Latin countries?

Straha

June 5th, 2006, 04:54 AM

So what's the culture of the US in 2056?

Blochead

June 5th, 2006, 08:19 PM

Raymann: Yeah, I was looking for a symbol (damn NAFTA for not having one I could rip off of), and settled on a simple N. American globe, integrated with most of the colors of all the (and future?) member nations.

I might change it later, but I like the stripes into arrow, so any design that may come after this will keep it.

Culture of US: Well, by the 2050s, Northern Mexico is very integrated with the US, partially due to a mixing of population from the rest of the country who came when land prices were cheap. Hispanic culture is very prominent though, and popular music forms still take a lot of influence from Mexican music.

The poverty level has dropped significantly due to a combination of EP tax free/reduced medical and education savings accounts and UP universal tertiary education. Standard of living in the 2050s is higher than its ever been in the US.

People are generally optimistic about the future of the United States, and American Exceptionalism is becoming resurgent after the isolationist realism period in the 40s.

However, the increasing influence of other cultures due to globalization and the apparent prosperity of the CoN and USE is fueling a more social-democracy influenced group in the US, mainly socially-liberal radicals from the UP. There is also a growing debate about the role of international influence in US politics, because despite America's relative 'recovery' after the economic crashes of the '30s and '40s, many are debating whether the future of the people should lie in UN or national hands.

WhatIsAUserName

June 5th, 2006, 11:31 PM

It might never happen, but I'd like to see a PAC v USE war somewhere in this scenario. That would be really interesting.

Blochead

June 6th, 2006, 12:45 AM

I don't think you'll miss one... Looking at the way I've set up the CoN/UN and the balance of power in the Western Hemisphere, I can't see some kind of confrontation being avoided now that the specter of MAD has been removed...

Constantinople

June 6th, 2006, 02:49 AM

Geh, the CoN scares me, hopefully PAC smashes it down, or somebody does.

What is the status of the Italian and German languages these days, spanish, BASQUE?

What about the Papacy?

Wendell

June 6th, 2006, 05:49 AM

These are interesting, yet expected developments.

David bar Elias

June 6th, 2006, 05:59 AM

This is one of my favorite TLs....can't wait for an update!

I'm guessing from the last installment that the EP is about to retake the WH. Then I'm guessing North America will continue on the road to unification.

Blochead

June 6th, 2006, 07:23 PM

Geh, the CoN scares me, hopefully PAC smashes it down, or somebody does.

What is the status of the Italian and German languages these days, spanish, BASQUE?

What about the Papacy?

Most local languages are still going very strong, though French remains the primary language of the USE. Education programs are used to try and keep children fluent in multiple languages.

When the USE assumed sovereignty over the member nations, it gave the option for enclaves to form their own states within the USE. The Basques have a seperate status from the state of Spain. A few Catalonians have considered starting their own referendum, but it has really been a back burner issue.

The Papacy is still residing in an independent Vatican. Faced with the decline of Catholicism in Europe, it finds its strongest support within the southern United States (which has had three Catholic presidents since Kennedy) and some of the nations of South America. Though the number of Catholics overall seems to be on a slight decline (some say due to the influence of US culture on Mexico), the lack of the influence of missionaries (due to the 'rollback' of the third world) has slowed the spread of evangelism, especially in South America and Africa.

The current pope is Leo XIV.

Since AIDS is no longer as big of an issue in Africa due to the quite powerful South African pharmaceutical industry and the ACSU relief program, the Church has returned to a more conservative position, and is troubled by the growth of biotechnology, which many argue is effectively 'playing god'.

Blochead

June 7th, 2006, 07:16 PM

[2056-2060]

[Americas]

In 2056, the election is splintered by the official ‘party’ of the radicals being formed, the Prosperity Party. Drawing on the ideas of a progressive, peaceful social democracy, the PP falters early and does not manage to swing any state.

However, the EP does lose some thunder when foreign policy hawk Jacob Howard is elected, the first Jewish president of the United States. Despite losing a few of the evangelical votes, he does draw in many moderate voters who felt UP policy was becoming too isolationist, and promised to reform the Lombardi administration. One of the few ardent supporters of the PAC from the UP, Howard promises that US foreign policy will not be partisan in nature; and instead will be formulated around the best interests of the United States and the Combine.

Howard draws criticism from the ‘internationalists’ during his campaign when many jump on his anti CoN/UN policies that criticized the UN’s plans to reinternationalize space and implement CoN-style gun control onto all member nations. Howard quickly becomes the bane of the CoN and UN, appointing Carlos Gutierrez, a noted pro national sovereignty advocate as UN ambassador.

In 2057, when he takes office, he reapplies the Non-Market Tariff to subsidized goods from Quebec, Colombia, and other CoN nations. He also increases the military budget and formally claims the US occupied portions of the Mare Tranquilatas in a joint declaration with the UK and the nations of SEATO in 2058. The US space forces are mobilized, and angrily but reluctantly, the CoN withdraws their mining equipment and ‘international claim’ to the Mare Tranquilatas.

With the possibility of space war narrowly averted, on April 3rd of 2058, the Howard Presidency reaches a shocking end.

A carefully laid explosive device is set outside a bipartisan, multinational PAC convention in Chicago. Before exiting his limousine, a pattern of explosives detonates, killing Howard and several secret service members instantly and wounding one Senator Neil Lundberg, who would later recapture his Minnesota seat in a landslide vote.

The perpetrators were found to be a group of radicals, who had served in a variety of mercenary groups and even the Foreign Legion. Their claim was that they had been ‘contracted’, and were willing to offer ‘information about their employer’ as part of a plea bargain. Their ‘information’ was never consistent and shoddy, and those who investigated said the murder was most likely instigated by a ‘deep hatred of US policy and tradition’, noting memorabilia and literature commonly associated with the ‘anti-Empire’ cause that the public was reexamining from the US absorption of Mexico and interventions in the 2006 war and China.

They were all executed.

But many Americans during the trials and after were displeased by their findings. Conspiracy theories involving the UN, CoN, secret training by the USE in the Foreign Legion and even a plot to sympathize the US people towards a cause of interventionism were cited as the ‘true’ causes behind the assassination.

Unfortunately, the remaining two years of the Presidency took a heavy toll on vice President Richard Adams, who after continuing Howard’s policies, revealed at the end of his term that he was suffering serious psychological problems that would impede his performance as President, and stepped down from running a second term. Without a strong figure to lead them to 2060 and the presence of the social-democrat oriented Prosperity Party that took votes from the more socially liberal UP members, the EP would retake the White House.

In Quebec, at the news of Howard’s election in 2056, the government announced that it would open up its territory to CoN defense forces and once again expand its own purchases in the military-industrial area. Most blamed the rise in tensions of a volatile mix of a non-isolationist US President with a very pro-CoN Quebecois government, and the results did not bear good news for anyone. The assassination of Howard only increased tensions.

In response to the Quebec-CoN buildup, Canada used the PAC Defense Command alert to justify the remobilization of military units to the Quebec border. The fact that the attack had taken place at the convention center, regardless of the intentions of the bombers, did provide the PAC with an increased feeling of unity. The fact that the only US Presidential assassination in nearly 100 years had occurred at the PAC convention was not lost on many.

In South America, Howard’s reinstatement of funding to the Chilean government resulted in tensions flaring in South America. The problem was only exacerbated when Peru and Ecuador went into a brief, informal conflict in 2059 over economic and territorial issues.

[Europe and the Mideast]

The USE in 2057, along with assorted CoN supporters, finally decided to clean up their backyard and commit itself to ‘repairing’ the damage done during the African War. Deploying peacekeepers and authorizing NGOs to move in, a slow reconstruction of the devastated land the Sahara had reclaimed began. After some brief fighting in the coastal regions where the former nations’ population centers once resided, the CoN took up governance and began redeveloping infrastructure to turn the devastated Mediterranean Africa into a functioning organization, much to the chagrin of regional power Egypt. However, Israel’s influence prevented them from moving in on the former ‘disorganized zone’.

The NEI and the PAC formally signed a new Transatlantic Alliance in 2059, which was no surprise to the world but somewhat discomforting to the USE.

The Russian Confederation sent peacekeeping troops to their devastated neighbor, and helped set a plot to reunification for the late 2060s, once the Eastern economy had developed. The Russian Confederation also began dispensing aid, both military and civilian, to Balkan nations under UN administration. NEI members also began lobbying the UN for a ‘return to sovereignty’ timetable for the Balkan nations.

Persia launched an invasion of Turkmenistan in 2057, which quickly bogged down into guerilla fighting after the major conventional warfare campaign ended.

In 2058 Turkey held their post-civil war elections, and one of the leading Generals from the victorious Republican faction was re-elected, promising a campaign of reform and a partnership with both the NEI and Israel.

[Asia]

Central Asia was thrown into a furor when the Persian invasion began. Realizing they had fallen far behind much of the other regions of the world, many of the remaining countries began to align themselves with other world powers. Mongolia chose SEATO and PAC, as the war in the Russian Federation had eliminated Russian control and opened up the markets once again to investment. Kazakhstan forged better relations with the Russian Confederation, while most of the rest chose the CoN, knowing it offered them the protection of India, which already seemed to be on a collision course with the Persian regime.

In Indonesia, a significant earthquake piled upon bad weather and financial trouble in 2057 planted the seeds for a period of unrest throughout the remainder of the 2050s. SEATO task forces established piecemeal order over the nation, and when elections had finished, Indonesia applied for SEATO membership.

[Africa]

By 2057 the ACSU has reestablished order in the Congo, and an interim government is put in place. Conflict in Nigeria, however, continued through 2060, though on a lower intensity than previously experienced.

In Sierra Leone, the US deployed a peacekeeping force to help stabilize the region, and with conflict spreading in the other countries (mainly due to CoN ‘investigations’ over arms smugglers who broke the small-arms ban). The assassination of President Howard did not help in this regard, and many reports circulated about close-calls and narrow aversions of war between the roaming special-forces groups in West Africa.

Constantinople

June 7th, 2006, 10:54 PM

A conflict is brewing...
This TL really has become even more dark I think.
Why was Bulgaria occupied?

Blochead

June 7th, 2006, 11:29 PM

Yeah, the TL has become quite nasty, and looking at my writeups for what comes next, it's going to be hard to find much to be optimistic about...

Bulgaria has been occupied due to the USE doctrine of removing destabilizing elements. In this case, Bulgaria was supplying large amounts of armarments to various sides directly or being used as a conduit. The USE was able to invade and occupy, but most likely the CoN will relinquish governance there first.

And yeah, a conflict is brewing. I've tried to set up some inherently conflicting worldviews, whether stated or not, you guys have probably picked up on.

USE/ACSU/CoN: Based on the idea of the 'European Dream' mixed in with a kick of continental patriotism. You'll notice most of their actions are based around removing 'dangerous' or 'volatile' elements from the geopolitical stage, hence the war with the Alliance of God and the CoN occupations. The success of the USE has lead the nations that ascribe to this faction to believe that volatility politically, socially, and economically requires an external force to measure, hence the neo-Keynesian economic policy brought in during the 2030 financial crash and the use of international bodies to regulate specific territory.

The CoN and ACSU arms and space control policies are made to reflect the experience that the third world has had in both areas. Overall, one could summarize the CoN policy as 'Global Peace, or else', perhaps...

PAC: The attitude of the PAC nations is based heavily on the ideas of the Western hemisphere revolutionaries, that the individual citizens should have power over the government and its affairs rather than the government having power to intervene in the affairs of citizens. So as a result you see am emphasis on the government staying out of people's fiscal and personal matters, even the United Party in the USA reflects notions of the PAC independent streak in much of their foreign policy and domestic economic policy.

In terms of foreign policy, the recovery of the NAFTA, and later PAC nations has generally fostered an idea that the responsibility of North Americans is to act in their own interests first, and to focus any extraregional action along the lines of defending N. American interests and preserving regional independence (Chiapas, the Quebec incident) or expanding the 'opportunities' of the Anglo-American ideals (democracy, free markets, rule of law, individual power) to those who want it, hence the actions in West Africa.

Though I personally subscribe more to the PAC 'ideals', it's more likely my experiences personally. Doing the research on UN arms control proposals (specifically the NRA-IANSA debate, two extremes of these ideals which I've diluted a bit for realism but basically model the attitudes of the two sides and highlight the difference between the thinking nicely) and after reading the various 'rise of Europe' books, I've tried to present these without too much of a bias, though since most readers here are Brits or Yanks the strong-USE/World Govt spiel will probably be a turn off...

basileus

June 8th, 2006, 03:22 PM

WhatIsAUserName

June 8th, 2006, 07:27 PM

I've tried to present these without too much of a bias, though since most readers here are Brits or Yanks the strong-USE/World Govt spiel will probably be a turn off...

Yes, that's true, but you do realize that an American-led world government movement is almost stereotypical, and would (should) arouse just as much controversy.

Blochead

June 8th, 2006, 09:13 PM

Heh... Depends on how you define liberty.

If you define liberty as the right to conduct business without government oversight and regulation, then I suppose you could call the US the 'champion of liberty'.

If you believe liberty includes things like liberty from poverty, high medical bills, wage slavery, job insecurity, a shorter life, torture, gun violence, and petty nationalism, then you're more likely to fall in favor of the USE.

In fact, standards of living are higher in many factors over that of the United States. While the idea of the state being more powerful than the people may have negative connotations, it is necessary, even in a democracy, for many of the social programs espoused by the 'European dream' to be accomplished. I think it's somewhat indisputable that since the end of WWII and continuing into modern times, the larger state bureaucracies have been in Europe rather than the US, for better or for worse.

You mention statolatry, I don't think the USE or the CoN are an example of that at all. I see the USE as not a worship of the state, but a worship of the community (local and international), the idea that the people use the state to act in the common good. You can see that idea in most of the USE social and economic programs, and you can see that in USE foreign policy with the stabilizing actions and the formation of the CoN. Though there are tinges of nationalism in USE policy, this is only because nationalism and nationalization also draws heavily from the 'common good' theories of liberal economics.

If you want something closer to statolatry, you can look at the US in the 2050s, and later into the 2060s...

WhatIsAUserName

June 9th, 2006, 12:57 AM

I have a question: Why is the first Jewish president also the first to be assassinated in a long time. To me, his assassination would be due more to anti-semitism than anti-imperialism. Maybe Nazis were the true perpetrators.

Blochead

June 9th, 2006, 06:40 PM

Eh, I know who actually did it, but for now I'd like to try and keep the readers in the dark. When I start doing some of the written segments leading up to the... well, you know what, I'd still like to have some secrets to put out.

But really, none of the men found had any nazi links, and in fact were closer to many farther-left sentiments if they carried any radical political slant at all.

Blochead

June 11th, 2006, 12:23 AM

The moment you've all been waiting for...

[November 2nd 2060- May 5th 2062: Charging Towards the Brink]

[Americas]

Neil Lundberg, the victorious EP candidate, veteran of the West Pacific War (A tank driver in III Corps) and survivor of the Howard Assassination bombs, was arguably the worst candidate in the 2060 race for the prospects of true negotiation and peace. The EP, party of the middle class and businessmen, was also the party of the military and the corporations that serviced them. Pro-sovereignty (or nationalists, depending on one’s political preferences) EP and militarist UP members had provided the biggest boost in peacetime arms funding since 2040, Lundberg’s ‘Guns and Margarine’ Congress (a term popularized by the EP’s preference to slim down welfare and boost education and arms spending) had its share of pet projects.

Lundberg continued many of Howard’s foreign policy plans. In 2061 he pushed the Pan American Combine to allow the nations of Belize and Nicaragua into the organization, and created PACDEFCOM, the international ‘supreme command’ body for the PAC to use to organize armed forces for combined operations.
The year 2061 was a good one for most PAC nations, but in the rest of the Americas tensions were high. Despite the completion of the ‘Progress’ Atlantic Space Elevator by the Community of Nations, Chile was growing irate with the CoN’s declaration of mandate over resources in the Andean Mountains in disputed territory. These tensions reached a breaking point in late 2061, when evidence was found of nationalist, right wing Chilean generals providing support to mercenary groups in Santa Cruz who were attempting a coup against the pro-CoN regime that they blamed for ‘suppressing their culture and economic development’ by use of a ‘biased socialist system’. It was nothing new in Bolivia, but going back to what the Bolivian President called “The old, violent, despicable ways that kept South America under the thumbs of imperialists and businessmen” were met with widespread shock throughout much of South America.

And so the South American powers began to mobilize forces, knowing that the war could draw in far more than just South America.

In Quebec, the CoN began to attempt positioning of strategic strike bombers from the USE, supersonic, stealth aircraft that could carry devastating payloads. When discovered by a DoD Artificial Intelligence tasked with analyzing ELINT data, the US was shocked. Invoking the logic of nearly a century earlier, the US demanded the immediate removal of what they claimed were offensive weapons, poised to ‘strike at the heart of North American nations’. Popular sentiment backed Lundberg, as many citizens of PAC nations felt that the CoN was becoming ‘too intrusive’ in the Western Hemisphere. The move by the CoN was intended as a balance of power, no different than the fact that the US still maintained strategic bomber bases in Diego Garcia. But the United States home policy had always been one of hegemonic rule, and having strategic weapons in a nation that bordered the US was disturbing to most.

Negotiations began in New York, but they only piled up into more demands. The CoN wanted US weapons in space decommissioned and the US to rescind territorial claims on the moon, the PAC wanted border demobilizations in the nations surrounding Chile. Quebec wanted Canadian troops off the borders, despite the fact that Ontario was practically on the border.

The PAC responded to all this UN debate by imposing a no-fly-zone for foreign military aircraft over all corridors to Quebec, and extended a similar one to military vessels where possible. At the Combine headquarters in Chicago, PACDEFCOM seemed to be receiving a trial by fire, and the rest of the world was only throwing them more fuel. The American public adopted a new symbol, introduced by protestors outside New York, the Gadsden Flag. An office tower facing the UN was soon adorned with the old emblem, accompanied by a PAC and US flag, a blatant insult and show of defiance to the diplomats who exited the UN building. Some were so angry as to threaten to move the UN general assembly to Switzerland.

However, a Joint Commander of PACDEFCOM, Robert Salizar, liked the emblem so much that it soon became implemented in the unofficial ‘flag’ of PACDEFCOM. The 2062 elections reflected similar sentiments: the ‘spirit of 76’ or something akin to it had galvanized the country into a frightening state of affairs. Without the real fear of nuclear war, there was little dampening to prevent the brewing crisis. And so during a period of miserable rain in New England and Canada, May 6th, there was little hope for compromise or cool-headedness to stop the defining conflict of the 21st Century.

[Europe and North Africa]

The deployment of bomber aircraft to Quebec was a symptom of a wider buildup in the USE. However, it was not the PAC that had triggered this development, it was really in response to the growing force of the New European Initiative, which had began joint military efforts and muscling the USE out of some of its traditional ‘stomping grounds’ in Europe. Bulgaria was returned to local rule, and the NEI accepted many other Balkan states as ‘observers’ to protect them from any further USE intervention in their nations.

But USE actions were not entirely destabilizing, in fact, significant progress was being made in North Africa. Law and order was restored, and significant funding was put into the construction of infrastructure in the nations. Standards of living were on the increase as the CoN subsidized NGOs to help rebuild the region.

The Russian Confederation welcomed East Russia back, and both the NEI and SEATO worked to help reintegrate Russia and bring the East back to the standards of the wealthier nations. SEATO agreed in the East to use its economic influence to help locals, and connect the East with the world economy.

[Africa and the Mideast]

The Mideast was relatively quiet at first glance, but diplomatically the PAC, ACSU, SEATO, NEI and CoN were competing for influence among local powers, specifically Israel, which held power over the Suez. The PAC and NEI worked hard to secure things for Turkey, which could prove a key ally in a fight against the Community of Nations. ACSU wanted the Mideast reigned in so that the PAC would not use them to force the CoN to divert resources against them, and SEATO was concerned about keeping neutrality so they could keep trade flowing.

Nigeria was slowly quieted by ACSU forces, and with news of the Chilean incident, the Community of Nations began cracking down on mercenary groups in West Africa, some of which they accused of coming from US controlled Liberia and Sierra Leone. The flow of arms was also blamed partly on the US backed nations, which only further aggravated the precipitous global balance of power in the early 2060s.

[Asia]

SEATO tried to remain neutral, hoping to retain the peace between the CoN and PAC. Their economy was powerful mainly because of the trade that dominion over the Pacific granted them, and a global war would likely destroy that. From nation to nation, favorites varied. Japan, Vietnam and Australia were more pro-US, while the other countries were uninterested or pro-CoN. But SEATO itself made no official statements either way, and instead braced itself financially and militarily for the possibility of war, even as many called the idea absurd.

India continued their tough stance on Persia, staunchly supporting the Kazakhs as they helped wage a guerilla war against the Persian invasion forces in Turkmenistan. The greatest worry was that the US would spur Persia into a total war that India would have to fight, something they had striven to avoid in the past.

Blochead

June 11th, 2006, 03:51 PM

[May 6th, 2062]
[0841 EST]

[Over Disputed Waters]

Lieutenant Clemenza shifted in his G-web cushioned seat as the neural and optical displays washed new sensor information over his view. It wasn’t from him; the USE aircraft were running active-blind to try and avoid sensor detection. Instead, information was being beamed down from a USE Space-Based Radar satellite that was monitoring the blockade activities of the Americans.

Clemenza could not, under any conditions, reveal his position, for his flight to reinforce CoN aircraft in Quebec would only legitimize the inevitable PAC response. The twelve fighter-bombers from the USE squadron were no ordinary aircraft; they were carrying tactical nuclear weapons that Quebec lacked. Only a few days before, intelligence revealed that the US was making similar moves by sending tactical nuclear arms to military forces in upstate New York.

He looked at the new information again, and cursed. A vector of two PAC interceptors from the carrier Alexander Alvern, were moving at high speed towards his flight. He was sweating profusely now. Their orders were to fire only if fired upon, but what constituted actual firing and aggressive action was completely different now.

His sensor systems indicated that radar waves and LADAR beams were now sweeping over his aircraft, more than what was being generated by the two interceptors. Now the more powerful AWACS systems had been trained upon him, and the three radar systems in conjunction quickly ‘burnt through’ his stealth. They had acquired him, and now the first radio message was being sent out, by the cold, radio-distorted voice of a female, Clemenza knew not who.

“Foreign combat aircraft, you are violating the Pan American Combine Quarantine Zone. You will turn back immediately, or we will destroy you. Respond now to acknowledge your compliance.”

A minute passed like an hour, and the warning came again. They weren’t far from Quebecois airspace; if they could make it they were home free. The Americans, for all their bluster, wouldn’t dare attack them on friendly soil.

And then they started jamming their communications. The encrypted radio message from the satellite that was feeding them data cut out, and the two PAC interceptors began doing flybys, each presumably equipped with the jamming suite. Another warning, drowned out by his blood pounding in his ears.

He would do what he was ordered and what was right. Nobody would start a war over this, and if they did, the rest of the world would win, right? America was a shell of its former self; they didn’t rule the world anymore. They could act like it, but they never would again. The Community prevented things like that.

His passive sensor system cut out, and like a glass with the tablecloth pulled out from under it, Clemenza and he crashed back to reality and the world of errors and arrogance and illogical rationality. The AWACS was using the AESA array like a weapon, frying every sensor he had. Missile-lock warning and launch tones screeched at him while targeting LADAR beams for direct energy weapons danced over the aircraft’s fuselage. Without visual contact, he couldn’t know what was going on. And then his LIDAR saw the truth, if briefly. Two of the PAC interceptors that had fled while the AWACS directed its high-power beam were turning back at high speed, opening their weapons bays. It was chicken, just like that. Not enough fuel to turn around now, only a fraction of a moment to push the button to save your life for the next two seconds.

He pushed it and doomed the world to misery.

[0901 EST]

[New York City]

It was another day in diplomatic hell.

Driving in guarded limousines into the century old complex from which the world had bickered and squabbled and cooperated for over a century, the diplomats and representatives of most of the world’s nations were not eager to spend another day watching as the titans of the international stage dueled in what seemed to be a centennial reenactment of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Already the international community was growing irritated with American demands and their quarantine, and the fact that they were heckled by protestors in their commute was of no help either.

America’s complaints seemed to have come up as the world’s most important issue again.

So when the American ambassador, a well-humored but cutthroat and uncompromising man who many had hoped would have left with the Howard-Adams Presidency, stood up quickly after everyone was seated, many silently cursed that the pissing match would dominate another day.

He was not his normal self. As people fortified themselves for another day of argument, he yelled and security guards took up his cause, people quickly became silent. Hundreds of eyes looked on with a mix of curiosity and annoyance at the grim looking American man standing in the UN assembly.

“Gentlemen, as of eight forty one, Eastern Standard Time, the USE entered a state of war against the Pan American Combine.”

A gasp of those who understood his words filled the room, and realization of what had happened traveled faster than the translators could spread it.

“A flight of fighter bombers, all armed with offensive weaponry,” a picture of USE aircraft flashed on the screen, taken from cameras from aircraft moving at high speed and from multiple angles, flashed in procession across the main projector screen in the chamber, “attempted to run our military quarantine around the Republic of Quebec. While we attempted to force these strike aircraft down peacefully, we received no response to our warnings, and instead, a missile launch by the USE aircraft.”

Now the projector displayed video imagery from one of the aircraft, just showing a few specks highlighted by fire-control symbols. Then there were flashing colors and sounds, and a snake of condensing scramjet exhaust as a pair of missiles flashed towards the camera, followed by imagery of the ensuing dogfight. The ambassadors watched, fixated and horrified, as the entire scene unfolded before them in vivid color. The fight itself lasted only a few minutes, narrated by the sounds of computer warning systems and angry and confused young men and women on the American side.

“We lost one aircraft to that initial attack. We responded with force and destroyed the USE fighters. There was still a hope for peace. But instead, we have detected launches of bombers from the Quebec airfields roughly ten minutes ago, accompanied by cruise missile launches. As of right now, American airfields are under attack, and within a few minutes a USE cruise missile pattern should be impacting in this city.”

Many ambassadors were already leaving, the German fellow who represented the USE was red faced, barking orders to his guards as he stormed out of the building. The UN would be reconvened in Geneva later, but for now it was absolute panic.

News reporters had already picked up information, and by the time they had made it out of the UN building, alarms were blaring across the city and the sounds of sonic booms echoed as PAC fighter aircraft raced to stop the incoming missiles.

And the stark yellow of the Gadsden flag presided over the entire scene.

Agentdark

June 11th, 2006, 04:44 PM

Damn, ultimate war

Blochead

June 11th, 2006, 06:07 PM

Yes indeed...

And now for random stuff not previously posted in this thread (and a sneak preview of the war's events).

http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/9421/pacdefcom3gt.png

PACDEFCOM Flag, gets 'adopted' during war.

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/651/pacprop5gz.png

Propaganda poster from the war... Tank pictured is a Wolverine MBT, one of many designs that had existed earlier on carbon (in the banks of manufacturing computers like Henry), and was put into production to push the USE out of Mexico, and later used in... other... theaters.

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/4213/untitled62ij.png

UN/CoN propaganda poster, after the US adopted 'Total War' policies.

Fyrwulf

June 11th, 2006, 07:17 PM

Free Scandinavia from the tyranny of the USE! Glory and Victory to the Pan American Combine!

Constantinople

June 11th, 2006, 07:48 PM

Sweet, the world is screwed.
How large is that tank?

Blochead

June 11th, 2006, 09:18 PM

Fyr, the Scandinavian bloc is in the New European Initiative, but since the NEI signed the Transatlantic Alliance with the Combine, you bring up an interesting idea.

Constantinople, you know the Ratte (http://members.tripod.com/~fingolfen/superheavy/p1000.html)? (I ought to do a TL where some of that crazy crap gets built...)

The Wolverine is a bit less heavy (I dunno, around 600 tons?), but basically designed as part of an effort to break a very nasty stalemate in Mexico. One of the advantages of the highly-automated factories is that you can switch over and retask production much more easily... The tanks are assembled in sections (hence the multiple tread pods) and then coupled together. They're designed to survive basically anything at least once (save nukes), which is why you see all the smaller turrets, half of them are modified CIWS pods or turrets from smaller AFVs...

It's really the frankenstein of tanks.

CalBear

June 11th, 2006, 09:54 PM

Blochead

June 11th, 2006, 10:06 PM

Heh... Yeah, that was one of my inspirations, though in practice it will be a little more like a Bolo (though sans the military-genius AI).

Wendell

June 12th, 2006, 06:49 AM

Nice use of propaganda.

Blochead

June 14th, 2006, 05:21 PM

Thanks. I tried to adjust the slogans to help be a more accurate gauge of public feeling about the war.

Blochead

June 14th, 2006, 06:34 PM

And now it's time for a glorification of Canada.

[May 7th, 2062]
[0433 EST]
[Outside Ottawa]

“Goddamn good for nothing Quebeckers,” muttered Lieutenant Dave MacDougall as he scuttled across the trenches, interspersing curses with fire mission orders. The past seventeen hours had been long for him, and from the initial strike, they’d wasted the armored command vehicle that was supposed to be his shelter. Instead he’d spent the time moving from hide to hide, thanking God and point defense systems that he hadn’t been hit by a shell yet.

He went from gun to gun, checking on the crews cramped up in the bowels of their vehicles. They’d been shelling since the damn war started, even though the Connies were supposed to have stopped advancing for at least ten hours. Now it was just attrition. Every time the enemy shelled Ottawa and the defenses, some sensor bird picked it up and relayed them a fire mission, so the 2nd Royal Horses were as shelling as often as the Connies were. He wasn’t sure what unit in particular, but it didn’t matter to him. From what he knew, he was attacking grid coordinates displaying unusual frequencies on the electromagnetic channel.

The guns were firing again, steam billowing from where intermittent rain contacted hot barrel. He ought to have the crews check the barrel casing when they had the chance; getting water in an electromagnetic coil was never fun stuff to deal with on the battlefield.

MacDougall poked his head above the trench’s edge and surveyed the scene before him. Ottawa was still burning. There was nothing they could have done to prevent it, he mourned, and it seemed that street fighting was still going on. He felt bad for the poor bastards there, especially the supplementary reserve guys that were given some old Yank surplus PA that probably was obsolete by the Forties, and sent up against front line Connies.

The Seven was a mess, from what he saw. It was a still life study of a gridlock, empty, rain-soaked and ash-coated cars from the EMP blast, a few burning and mangled from where munitions hit. Using the zoom function on his suit’s sensor helm, he watched as the cruciform airfoils of artillery-launched mines were scattered over the highway. Command was committed to making a mess if the Connies tried to push down the Seven for Toronto, because if Toronto went then the Peninsula went and if that went then Chicago and the American Midwest, a center of Yank gear production, was shit out of luck.

The little mines settled on the road among the cars, their stabilizing ‘petals’ still unfolded while they sat on the ground. For some reason he thought about Flanders Fields (perhaps the only thing the 2nd had been known for up until this war, maybe, if anyone knew who they were at all now), and then a video feed window popped up in his visor. Clearing his throat, MacDougall began to call in another fire mission.

Constantinople

June 18th, 2006, 01:00 AM

Woo hoo! Go canada! Smash those psuedo frenchies!

If there is this much destruction across mexico, that requires 600 ton tank to break the front, then weve got an exciting war and a screwed world.

Update!

Constantinople

June 25th, 2006, 07:04 PM

Uh, I hate to be pushy or anything, but the third ( or is it 4th) world war just started, and things are really getting interesting.

Fyrwulf

June 25th, 2006, 08:24 PM

Actually, I think this might be the 5th. Depends on how you define world war.

Constantinople

June 25th, 2006, 11:26 PM

Yeah thats right huh? Actully, hmm, Montenegro should be independent....
But what Im wondering is how the USE forces take a bunch of Mexico...
Gah oh yes, this is a late question, but how did the USE handle monarchies, like Spain, the netherlands, belgium, Lux. and er um, andorra?

Fyrwulf

June 26th, 2006, 03:23 AM

It's not the USE, it's the CoN. The CoN is a kinda of superalliance between the USE, whatever the African alliance is called, and South America. I've talked to Bloc and believe me this is going to be a very interesting war. In every sense of the word, including the Chinese one.

Blochead

June 29th, 2006, 04:31 PM

The overall summary of the global clusterf*ck... Well, half of it. European Front and West Asian front coming... Soonish. Maybe.

--

[The War: 2061, May-June]

[Canadian Front]

The CoN had an early advantage here, as their strategic assets were all closer to the border than their PAC assets. Strategic bombers were already fueled, and in the air in seconds, both manned and unmanned versions with pre-programmed strike missions. Flying low and fast, they launched primarily cruise missiles at PAC positions within 2,000 miles of the combat area.

Unfortunately for the US, once the missiles managed to cross the initial threshold of the border defenses, there was little left to stop them. For all the SDI style programs that put gigawatt laser towers and missile sites on borders, only a few locations were able to effectively intercept the cruise missiles in the numbers that they were launched. The initial CoN launch also marked the beginning in a new technological era in missile warfare: each cruise missile, whether it was a low-flying transonic weapon or a hypersonic, high-altitude system, was fitted with a ‘cyberbrain’, a dense carbon computer that had become commonplace among ‘smart weapons’ in the 2050. Each cruise missile was given ‘hunting grounds’ where it would search for an optimum point to detonate, based on strategic parameters preset into the weapon upon launch, and data gathered from its own sensors and the CoN data sharing networks. Many Canadian and US soldiers on the border tell stories of the transonic cruise missiles circling like vultures, waiting for a more favorable target to enter their ‘hunting grounds’.

However, for the most part the cruise missiles struck quickly, making their decisions faster than any human could react. Over civilian cities, EMP warheads were used to disable civilian equipment, with only certain ‘hardened’ installations like strategic infrastructure surviving the initial blast. Submunitions were liberally showered over vast expanses of the PAC front lines, and even a few US bomber airfields in the US heartland had their defenses penetrated by the cruise missile pattern.

The Quebecois forces began their push towards the Canadian capital during the largest artillery exchange of the century. Modern artillery systems showered hundreds of square miles with smart munitions that turned into mines when they could not find a target to expend themselves on. Civilian evacuations of massive cities within days simply did not happen in time, and within a week many were simply told to try and remain in their homes and accept supplies at designated ‘safe points’ when available. The permeation of mines and artillery fire in the suburbanized zones made the war truly hellish for civilians.

Nowhere else was this more apparent in Ottawa, which had bridges blown by the Royal Horses as soon as news of the war reached the capital. What resulted was a creeping war across the waterways as the Canadians tried to hold back the Quebecois Army, reinforced by units from the United States of Europe. The new course of small arms was radically reflected in this urban war, as well. Snipers were more deadly than ever, using networked spotters and EM rifles, they could acquire and engage targets inside buildings from miles away. Heavy machineguns incorporated similar technology, and for those unfortunate enough not to be protected by the jamming or defenses of a powered armor suit, the war was quite difficult to fight in the early stages of urban warfare or the rural areas throughout the war.

EMP weapons were prevalent, though the problem was how to use one big enough to penetrate shielding. In late June, PACDEFCOM finally had a breakthrough. The US Aerospace Force had finally worn down their Quebecois opponents enough to allow the passage of several of their heavier bombers to break into the combat area without the threat of UCAV high-Mach interceptors or Quebec’s regional air defenses. The heavy bombers dropped a massive pattern of high-yield EMP gravity bombs, which utterly devastated the Quebecois electronics from the front lines to the reserves.

After pulling back initially, Canadian troops, assisted by US deployments in the Great Lakes region, lead a Thunder Run directly through Quebecois forces in Canada, devastating them. Without their sensors, PAC airpower especially was able to inflict a heavy blow on forces in the city. With their front lines battered and their logistical train cut off (the EMP blast destroyed the electric systems of most vehicles), the forces advancing on Ottawa were routed, hastily moving back into Quebec before CoN engineers destroyed them, leaving some of the men behind.

The US had been fighting a particularly nasty conflict along the banks of the St. Lawrence River, basically exchanging gunfire with the Quebecois forces as the Americans struggled to find a bridge the Quebecois had not destroyed yet. Efforts to construct a bridge all faced massive setbacks, mainly due to the fact that neither side could achieve air superiority.

[Latin American Front]

Far from the clear-cut war of attrition of the conflict in Canada, Latin America erupted into chaos as the war broke out.

Due to their CoN obligations, the South Americans were bound to enter the fight. However, there was little resistance to entering the new conflict. Latin America had over one hundred and fifty years of being kicked around by the US, and was eager to retaliate. Even Colombia, once America’s sole ally on the continent, had been publishing history books that blamed Americans for the atrocities of the civil war with FARC and the DEA’s devastation of their economy. The only nation that was still behind the US seemed to be Chile; which had started a war with Bolivia and Peru in mid-May. However, it was not enough to save Panama. A CoN coup in Costa Rica against a government that was considered ‘too pro-PAC’ combined with Colombia had surrounded Panama with several divisions of troops, which began a massive assault on the strategically located nation.

However, there was still one obstacle, and that was a US fleet on the Pacific side of the nation. Providing massive amounts of railgun and missile support to the embattled Panamanians, a force was organized to dislodge it. Unfortunately for the CoN though, the Pacific fleets of Colombia and Peru were easily put on the bottom by the American ships. The better equipped navies of Argentina and Brazil would take some time moving around the Cape to engage the US vessels.

However, with American Atlantic fleets tied up against the USE vessels in the North Atlantic, America was slow in stopping the CoN in their march through Central America, a wave of coups and civil wars sweeping over any nation not in line with the CoN agenda.

The People’s Republic of Chiapas, as declared by several radicals who revolted with the aid of the Latin American governments, was established again, and soon bloody guerilla fighting began as the US forces attempted to remove them from the nation throughout June.

After the devastating strike against the US South Atlantic fleets due to USE missile strikes against their home ports on June 22nd, the PAC began gearing up for what it believed would be a massive push by the CoN to capture the lower Mexican states.

Another problem plaguing the US in Mexico was the advent of ‘smart warfare’ computer viruses, designed by AI’s themselves. Targeted against the computerized infrastructure of the 21st Century, the viral attacks against the more developed areas were devastating, interfering with power, water, communications, and business throughout the area. Combined with the guerilla attacks into the southernmost Mexican states, the situation down south looked dire as the South African and other ACSU fleets moved into the theater.

Pyro

June 29th, 2006, 06:14 PM

Things are looking rather grim for PAC on the Latin American Front. :( I'm just wondering, is the technology for 'orbital mass drivers' going to be used in this war? My memory's not that reliable but I do recall that the technology has been available for a while.

I still like how this war is unfolding thus far, though I'm confused on what side I should be rooting for.

Blochead

June 29th, 2006, 06:32 PM

Orbital weapons have been used in the past, and will show up once I finish the full writeup. The major powers have KE weapons in orbit, the most notable being a PAC maintained lunar-mass driver that is used for transporting building materials into space, but could also be used for combat...

As for who you should be rooting for, if you don't know, good!

The TL is (at least in my imagination) fairly dystopic. I don't even have a winner planned yet...

Blochead

June 30th, 2006, 02:01 AM

[European Front]

Europe was thrust into the war only a week after its beginning, when US hypersonic strike UCAVs, launched from airbases in Iceland and the UK, launched an air assault directly into the heart of the United States of Europe. The New European Initiative was bound by alliance to respond to the conflict, but had been slow to mobilize politically or militarily. But when the USE retaliatory orbital KKM strike devastated British air defenses and military facilities, the NEI responded in kind.

On May 27th, the Scandinavian countries launched an all-out assault on Germany, with SSKHs (fuel cell powered submarines) in Danish littoral waters moving to devastate the USE Baltic Fleet using supercavitating torpedoes directly on the ports, with the ships at sea mopped up by other subs or stealthy missile corvettes and frigates. EM and rocket assisted artillery began a full pounding on German forces in the area from Denmark and the Baltics, and cleared ‘Air Corridors’ where the overlapping defense grids of the USE had been disabled. Through these corridors were launched cruise missiles and strike UCAVs that destroyed several major plants, and disabling the largest Heckler and Koch factory in Europe (At the time, HK was the main producer of the USE’s standard-issue small arms).

Unable to push effectively into the Scandinavian territories, even Denmark after the disastrous Battle of Harrislee, the USE throughout June began wearing down Poland for a land invasion, where the USE found markedly more success, some attributing it to the lack of strong air forces to oppose the USE in that area.
[Western Asia]

With the outbreak of the war, Ayatollah Manouchehr (or his hyper-militaristic Cabinet, depending on who you believe), decided that the End Times were approaching, and through some insane analysis of the previous takeover of Syria and the pro-Persian government in Palestine, figured that the Koran already had given him his next target: India, conveniently also a CoN nation, possibly opening him to some form of aid from the forces fighting against them or SEATO. In fact, it is now believed that the Iranian government set up a task force for instigating a SEATO-Indian conflict, though the exact accomplishments of this group are up to debate by modern historians.

In any case, Persia launched their ‘Final War’ against the nation of India on June 4th, 2062 with a massive hypersonic missile pattern and by detonating high-yield EMP devices over Indian lines and major cities.

Unfortunately, and Indian commander on the front interpreted the blast as that of a tactical nuclear weapon of some sort, and retaliated by dropping neutron bombs over the initial Persian advances, with the Persians then retaliating with their own neutron weapons. Through some miracle, pressure by the CoN on India and the desire to capture, not irradiate India by Persia prevented larger exchanges from taking place earlier than they did. But already, with the largest nation on the planet going up against the most militarized nation on Earth (Persia had 150 soldiers per 1000 citizens and an economy based around conquest and military production), the West Asian theater seemed to be set up for the bloodiest conflict during the Many Wars.

Israel simply responded as it always did, by going on full alert. However, the two nations seemed far from conflict, as Israel was more concerned with maintaining peace than maintaining dominance of Western Asia.

[Space]

This would be the first war where space was a major, contested theater of operations, not just a position from which a dominant Western power used the Earth’s surface as a high-tech shooting gallery.

The first thing the US did when attacked was train its West Coast Strategic Defenses and orbital SDI against every CoN satellite they could find. Said one Aerospace Force commander, the sheer number of satellites in orbit meant that they could kill targets as fast as his weapons could fire.

The USE, of course, retaliated, launching EMP devices and high-energy lasers at the Fury class space-warships fielded by PAC through the US Aerospace Force. One Fury was destroyed, but they soon retaliated by firing KKMs directly into the offending USE space-warfare centers in the Guyanas and the ACSU complexes in Tanzania. The heavily defended Angolan launch centers, however, managed to sustain over minor damage. This was particularly worrying to the PAC and allies, due to the largest Earth-to-Orbit mass driver being situated there.

In an ‘I-told-you-so’ moment, the speculations of the anti-US UN lobby were proven correct when the Lunar Mass Driver began powering up for use. The CoN responded with the first land warfare off of Earth, a detachment of the CoN ‘Space Peacekeepers’ launched an assault on the complex in mid-June. Power-suited troops on both sides exchanged coilgun and gyrojet fire, and while the complex was not taken (thanks to the intervention of a Fury fresh from rearming at a US orbital factory. However, the Mass Driver was disabled and plans to use it were put on hold, for after the use of nuclear arms by the Persians and Indians, both sides of the conflict were fearful of a nuclear exchange between them.

dittomitto2445

June 30th, 2006, 03:28 AM

i really like the story but don't put it in italics it is a pain in the ass to read it that way

Constantinople

June 30th, 2006, 01:58 PM

I never imagined that the war would become this bad. Although I think the NEI joining the war puts the USE in a long term worse position than the USA is in, in the long term. Which Balkin nations are in the NEI now?
GO PAC!

Blochead

June 30th, 2006, 03:31 PM

There aren't too many Balkan nations in the NEI, it's basically the old European Union sans the USE.

Alchemist29

June 30th, 2006, 04:55 PM

Really like the TL, but there hasn't been a map in nearly 20 of the timeline and a lot of things have happened. Any possibility we could get a map soon?

JP_Morgan

July 1st, 2006, 11:37 PM

Cool, will space warfare be important in the future?

Fyrwulf

July 2nd, 2006, 09:59 PM

From what Bloc's told me, space is goint to be a huge part of the war.

Blochead

July 9th, 2006, 12:07 AM

Alchemist: If you check the map thread, I have a FlashMX animated map prototype... Now that I'm back from Vermont, I can get to finishing that.

JP: Definetly. Next update will have some pretty crazy stuff going on in orbit, look to the map thread or the CoN space program stuff if you want a little preview.

Blochead

July 10th, 2006, 12:00 AM

Here's the rest of 2062 in the Americas...

[July-December 2062]

[Quebec Front]

More than anything that occurred on land during this time, a massive naval engagement in the North Atlantic turned the tide in this theater of the war.

The USE ‘Expeditionary Fleet’, the only effective counter to the PAC naval forces in the ocean, was a dominant force as the US Navy struggled to meet the challenges of combined CoN forces in the South and North of the Atlantic. However, that all changed in early August, when the US Submarine Baja California sunk the USE supercarrier ‘Strength in Unity’ and several escort ships after lurking over a mile under the surface for weeks.

Like piranhas to blood, the USN surface fleet converged on the European vessels and sunk or crippled 70%, leaving the rest to limp back to port. And while US vessels had been sustaining significant casualties, the heavily defended US shipyards in the Virginia and New England areas allowed US ships to return to the fight much more quickly.

The consequences of the naval battle would be felt a few months later, when the planned arrival of fresh troops from Europe to Quebec never came. Combined with the increasingly intense combat on USE borders, Quebec found itself running out of materiel and men. For example, the USE-manufactured EMBT-8C main battle tank had a notoriously high-maintenance rail gun as its primary armament, with the barrels manufactured by Rhinemetall Group SSC (State Sponsored Consortium) in Germany. Without new shipments of these barrels, many CoN troops in Quebec found themselves in a particularly nasty situation, especially when the US and Canada could drive new tanks directly to the battlefield from the Midwest if they so desired.

However, the lack of supplies and men had much broader implications when PAC forces achieved a ‘corridor of superiority’ that covered Quebec City and Montreal.

Unfortunately for Quebec, December brought with it an Emergency Joint Session of Congress, populated with reinvigorated Congressmen disgusted with the damage that fighting had done to the Canadian capital and the idea of missiles impacting on New York of all places, with serious damage to Wall Street and the Trade Center Complex.

The EJSCs became common, this being the second, and is remembered as the infamous ‘Total War Congress’ for remarks by Speaker of the House Carlos Alejandro, UP-CA before passing the ‘Resolution to Defend Liberty’.

And within a week, the largest US bombing campaign in history began. Low flying, supersonic aircraft, assisted by a Fury spacecraft providing active defense and targeting telemetry, began pounding Quebecois forces around Montreal, and later certain areas of the city itself.

Millions were refugees were generated as the US attacked virtually all manufacturing and infrastructure that could benefit the Quebecois war effort. And there was very little the Quebecois were able to do about it. From the Furies in orbit, rail guns and ‘Rods from God’ vaporized Quebecois aircraft and air defense on the ground, while killer satellites cleared Quebecois air defense from orbit.

A Fury also destroyed two CoN ‘orbital defense stations’, giant fortress-like space-stations that provided much of the strategic anti-air and anti-missile defense for the Americas. But even while the PAC space forces were ‘controlling the night’ from Orbit, the Brazilian Space Elevator continued to pump up new war material from around a shroud of defensive platforms in orbit and on the ground in South America.

It was the largest structure ever constructed by man. And as the New Year approached, the US Aerospace Force dedicated itself to destroying it.

Back on Earth, things couldn’t have been worse in Montreal. Black smoke hung over the city like a funeral veil as millions fled the urban sprawl, some soldiers, some civilians, all fearing for their lives.

About three million people were estimated to have died in the Siege of Montreal from destruction and the diseases that followed without the infrastructure, half of them military. Thousands of people vanished in clouds of debris and vaporized tungsten, and years later the effects of the carcinogen found in the tips of the ‘Rods from God’ and bunker-buster weapons were still apparent.

American and Canadian armor from the West and South moved around the city, encircling the remaining military units and destroying them in the brutal combat that would mark major engagements in the ‘open field’. The shockwaves of rail gun projectiles from tanks and the sheer amount of munitions and artillery involved reduced healthy summer woods into dusty moonscapes covered with rusted hulks. Field reporters often remarked the aftermaths of engagements like the Battle of Autoroute 15 seemed to have pieces of vehicles and the shells of powered armor strewn about like toy soldiers thrown by a child. The machines that survived long after bodies rotted or were burned out remained were the only things that came close to immortality in the war.

The winter did little to slow the fighting, only to accelerate the casualties among the displaced population of Montreal and other towns being overtaken by combat. The PAC was determinedly grinding along to what seemed like victory in Quebec.

[Latin America]

But if the PAC had anything to cheer about up north, it was outweighed by the South. While the Quebec front created its body counts in massive bombings and colossal engagements at the division level, Latin America, Central America especially, accumulated them in high-tech guerilla warfare.

Major ports in Southern Mexico and Central America speeded the advance of CoN forces into PAC territory, as guerillas gave way to paratroopers, marines, and then whole divisions of troops. Those who were pro-PAC were killed by CoN backed ‘death squads’, and the CIA did exactly the same thing to those who supported the CoN. The advance of troops in Southern Mexico was slow at best, but it was preceded by a wave of social instability that brought on violent unrest, and the PAC forces were choked like hounds straining against their leash. One of the great failures of the PAC defensive strategy, many would remark, is that the same logistical trains established to fight Quebec were never put into place in Mexico. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and can see in the dark, and to previous strategists, the nearest real threat was in Colombia or Venezuela, which could have been held off at sea, had the US not fought so many engagements against the USE. Nor was the US expecting the Latin American nations the CIA had spent so much time and money shoring up to fall so easily.

By Christmas, missiles were landing in Mexico City and Oaxca was being engulfed by fighting, with the PAC planning to make their ‘stand’ on a line crossing the historic city of Puebla, where the mountains would allow the force of US armor to dominate. In theory, of course.

Pyro

July 10th, 2006, 03:39 PM

Exciting as always. Looks like Quebec is in a really position, unless the USE can spare some men and material I don't see how long they can stay in the fight. I hope we'll see what's happening on the European Front and will SEATO be dragged into the war in the future?

Constantinople

July 11th, 2006, 05:45 PM

Quebec destroyed...woah. The naval victory really would seem to be significant, but the war in space I bet will be the deciding factor/

Blochead

July 11th, 2006, 10:30 PM

Yep... Despite all the hullabaloo, it's my opinion that any engagement in densely populated areas like a city or the suburbs of the city in North America, especially when both sides are operating say, armor-piercing loaded assault rifles for use against power-armor and EM gun equipped main battle tanks, things will get messy fast.

As for SEATO, you'll see what happens, I don't want to spoil everything.

Constantinople, that's true, but there are still some cards that both nations could play if one got too much control over it...

Constantinople

July 14th, 2006, 05:42 PM

Ahem! AHEM! Any new update on the European front for us?

Blochead

July 14th, 2006, 10:19 PM

Hold on, hold on :p

I have a job and am out of the house from 8-5 or 8-9 most days (Weekends are easier)

I have the update draft, and will probably do some stuff on the rest of the world over the weekend, along with some pictures, nifty articles on nanotechnology and biotechnology in the war, and an expanded look at Africa and Central Asia's roles in the war.

Blochead

July 16th, 2006, 04:27 PM

Not done with the whole update, but here's the next bit.

[Europe]

Denmark is devastated by the war, as the USE begins sweeping up the peninsula. Never heavily in favor of the war as the British or Eastern Europeans were, Denmark descended into chaos when the USE dropped herbicides and incendiary bombs Danish fields. A USE assisted month of rioting in ‘Bloody October’ combined with a strategic cruise missile strike against Danish officials; Denmark declared neutrality in the war.

In the United Kingdom, however, there were signs of hope. Despite near-daily bombardment and heavy losses by the British Continental Detachment in Poland, the sight of the USE fleets limping home brought hopes of the reestablishment of trade, bringing in goods, and perhaps fighting men later, from the PAC.

But while this was hoped for, it would not happen in 2062.

Instead, British submarines launched an all-out attack on the USE fleet as they attempted to make it to home port, putting a USE carrier and several cruisers on the seabed of the English Channel. But the Mediterranean remained under USE control, ensuring that supplies would continue to flow in some form.

The German-Polish border soon became a hellish landscape, similar to Quebec, but without any chance of decisive airpower. Or space power, for that matter. While Quebec had comparatively weak defensive infrastructure, both the NEI and USE had excellent home defense capabilities and space warfare infrastructure. Going back to a modified version of Soviet general strategy, the NEI decided that a major offensive would need to be taken into Central Germany.

From missile bases in Russia and the Ukraines, hypersonic missiles were launched against eastern Germany, followed up by similar launches from SSGNs the British had sequestered in the North Sea. Loaded with EMP warheads and bunker buster munitions, they landed heavy blows to critical infrastructure around the German border. Then, Polish and other Eastern European soldiers charged towards Frankfurt an der Ober and the E36 outside the town of Klein Bademeusel, spearheaded by tank-heavy forces.

The advance at Klein Bademeusel broke through in November, but the advance in Frankfurt an der Ober was crippled when Brussels authorized limited nuclear arms to keep the NEI from reaching Berlin. Neutron and high-altitude nuclear EMP weapons were launched over NEI advances. Instantly, dozens of thousands of NEI soldiers were killed, and most of Poland was in a blackout or had its electronics destroyed utterly.

The British were quick to respond, having revived their Rifkind styled limited nuclear launch policy. The retaliatory ‘Continental Pattern’ destroyed German forces rallied around Berlin without hitting the city itself. As the radiation faded, the two Europes entered a nuclear duel for supremacy.

Behind the lines, the use of nuclear weapons only worsened the situation. ‘Refugee Flu’ broke out in the cities outside Berlin, in Slubice, Eisenhuttenstadt, Poznan and Lodz. Most scientists today agree that the various strains of Refugee Flu were so devastating because of weakened immune systems and lack of working infrastructure for treatment, but at the time, both sides blamed the flu on bioweapons developed by the other. With nuclear weapons in play and herbicides in use, it was not unreasonable to assume that such viruses would have been deployed. However, at this point in the war, no biological weapons were in use as far as historical records can show.

Meanwhile, secret negotiations began between the governments of Turkey and the NEI, hoping to forge an alliance that would open the Mediterranean to larger amounts of troops and arms from Russia and the Ukrainian nations without having to fight for footholds in the CoN dominated Balkans. What had started as a Monroe Doctrine dispute for the USE had evolved into a battle for survival and total war.

Fyrwulf

July 16th, 2006, 06:11 PM

*blinks* What happened to the all-out Scandinavian offensive? Go PAC! Go NEI! Pound those pinko-commie Euros into dust!

Blochead

July 16th, 2006, 06:21 PM

The Scandinavian offensive essentially shut down with Denmark's governmental overturn. And now that nuclear weapons are in use on the continent, any offensive through Scandianvian areas back into Denmark or from Sweden down to Europe would be easily stopped by tactical nuclear arms.

Fyrwulf

July 16th, 2006, 06:42 PM

Well, I gathered that much, I was just wondering how the USE had the forces to stop the offensive. The RSAF on its own isn't something to trifle with and neither is the RDAF, combine the two and toss in a spread-out USE air defenses trying to stop three different major air offensive and I can't imagine how the USE managed the near-impossible. Then again, this war is so confusing I'm having trouble imagining much.

Blochead

July 16th, 2006, 07:09 PM

Well, one of the first problems is that air combat doesn't work the same way anymore.

During the 2060s, the balance is only starting to tip back in favor of biological control systems (more on this later), but at the moment only wealthy nations like the USE, the PAC bloc, and SEATO can really afford them.

Given the advent of carbon computers and the continual increase in computing technology, missiles are often 'smarter' than aircraft, and other defensive systems like conventional-warhead EMP weapons, DEWs, and the USE's possession of Man-Machine Interface has made launching an air assault against a well defended, networked system incredibly difficult.

But to be sure, Northern Germany has been heavily damaged by airpower. Combined with the previous fighting in Denmark, the area is ripe for a takeover. The problem is that there are simply no ground forces to hold it.

Because of the 'close range' combat by 2060 strategic terms encountered in the Danish region, naval dominance isn't much of a factor. The area covered by both sides' network-centric defensive positions (Denmark, the Oder combat zone, and the English Channel) have become the no man's land of the future. When airpower becomes contested, you dramatically increase the risks involved in an offensive. And without a Danish staging area, any offensive that requires amphibious control (and thus airpower control) becomes far too dangerous.

Another factor is that Scandinavian countries simply don't possess enough willpower to fight on the scale the war now requires. While 60 years on, there has been a general shift to a more market oriented economy similar to the 'Third Way' of OTL UK, the Scandinavian nations possess neither the socio-economic opposition to the USE 'Alternative Social Market' (most prevalent in the US, and to a lesser degree, SEATO) or more importantly, the geopolitical opposition of the CoN's meddling in world affairs and 'collectivist imperialism' on the scale of the Anglosphere and the nationalists of the 2020-2030 generation who grew up to become Eastern Europe's current generation of leaders.

Fyrwulf

July 16th, 2006, 09:51 PM

Okay, I can understand that. Is the embarassment this war has been for the Scandinavian countries going to create an independance-minded pan-Scandinavian bloc? Or, another way of putting it, is the political momentum going to exist for modern rendition of the Kalamar Union (without all the political shafting, of course.)

Blochead

July 17th, 2006, 01:50 AM

[Asia]

Despite their massive military, the Persians simply could not stand up to the superior training and equipment of the Indian forces. By early November of 2062, Pakistan was under Indian control and Indian air superiority was complete. However, it came at a massive cost. Over 550 nuclear weapons, mostly sub 10kt tactical devices and neutron or enhanced EMP bombs, had been detonated. Though both nations stopped short of hitting each others cities directly, in the more remote areas of India and Persia, power was cut off completely and a humanitarian crisis was mounting.

Even more disturbing were stories by the Pacific News Corporation (now one of the largest news organizations ever in terms of readership) that Indian soldiers had been cracking down on Pakistanis and Muslims who expressed anger over Indian conduct. Indian soldiers were also reported to have gunned down masses of surrendering Persians. Of course, the Indians lacked the accommodations for the likely radiation-poisoned and sickened troops, and the Persians did not take prisoners under any conditions (and killed those who they found attempting to surrender), but few reporters risked reporting anywhere near the Persian lines or inside Persia itself.

Farther west, events were unfolding that would draw SEATO into a state of war. In the nation of Arabia, the once glorious oil capital of the world, now a despot-ruled wasteland, the ‘President’ Mahmoud (really more of a monarch, for his family had ruled the nation through nepotism and brute force since the country’s inception) began negotiations with the USE and ACSU to launch a joint invasion of Egypt, which had decidedly anti-CoN politics and significant support from SEATO fiscally and in terms of arms and aid. It was the hub of SEATO’s ‘African Market’, and it controlled the Suez Canal, which SEATO used to access the lucrative trading zone of Eastern Europe.

However, not all were interested in entering the war. Japan, the Philippines, and many of the smaller states wanted a more subtle approach to ending the crisis.

Unfortunately, subtlety never fared well in the Middle East.

In early September, the CIA assassinated President Mahmoud using UCAV launched missiles deployed from a submarine in the Persian Gulf that destroyed the Presidential motorcade completely. In a fit of rage, his nephew, the highest ‘ranking’ relative/official left in the government, another Mahmoud, blamed the act on Egyptian forces, and declared the Red Sea ‘Arabian waters’ and launched a massive assault on the Suez while dropping a pair of tactical nuclear weapons on Suez, where the majority of Egyptian ships were based. The combined nuclear blasts would kill the Egyptian crews and incapacitate their vessels. And soon the Arabian armies were marching on the Suez, only to be counter-hit by an Egyptian SSN armed with neutron weapons in the Mediterranean.

SEATO now had the perfect excuse to intervene. After negotiations with Israel, Indonesia, China, Australia and New Zealand prepped forces for deployment to the ‘Suez Crisis Zone’, where they would work with Egypt and Israel to ‘reestablish order’.
A declaration of war by Arabia soon followed, and while the USE condemned foreign intervention in the area in the harshest of words, there was little they could do to stop it.

India, however, was preparing to declare outright war on SEATO, for Arabia itself was an Indian client state and ally against Persia.

But what scared India, and indeed the world the most was that SEATO was finally taking on its position as one of the world’s superpower blocs in terms of hard power projection. With some of the most technologically advanced and well trained militaries, nobody was sure just how this woken giant would assert itself during the war.

WhatIsAUserName

July 17th, 2006, 04:06 AM

Is SEATO supporting or against the CoN?

Pyro

July 17th, 2006, 04:47 AM

I can't speak for Blochead, but I get the impression that SEATO is either now aligned with PAC because the USE and ACSU were planning to help Arabia invade Eygpt. Or SEATO could be acting as a third party in this war. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Fyrwulf

July 17th, 2006, 05:02 AM

Bloc tried to explain it to me once and it's very complicated. For your sanity, just consider SEATO to be a third party in the war.

Blochead

July 18th, 2006, 01:55 AM

SEATO is a third party that works in its own self interest... The only reason they appear to fight with the PAC aligned nations it that they share a common interest of removing the CoN's influence throughout the globe, which presents itself as a barrier to trade (Concerning mostly the merchant-warrior nations of SEATO) and as an encroaching threat (PAC and NEI). Of course, some nations like Australia and New Zealand show more honest solidarity with the Anglophones in the fight, but the vast majority of SEATO action will be done out of interest of power projection and market control.

And what SEATO does after they finish fighting will be far more interesting.

Fyrwulf

July 18th, 2006, 04:54 AM

Bloc, are the Scandinavians ever going to cowboy the hell up? I'm feeling my mighty disappointed in my ancestoral homeland right now (well, one of them.)

Pyro

July 18th, 2006, 03:35 PM

I concur with that, seeing that many of my ancestors were Norwegian.

As for SEATO, I can imagine they'll be in much better shape than the other combatants in this war.

Blochead

July 19th, 2006, 01:05 AM

Eh, we'll see. They have a better chance of being powers if they stay out of the war on the continent, now that nukes are flying and all.

Fyrwulf

July 19th, 2006, 02:02 AM

Obviously that's so, but I think both of us were speaking in the future tense. Actually, the one thing that will help is that they'll be neutral bastions for people to flee to if they want to get away from the war. If they can get even a small percentage to stay, that'll help their economies and war machines greatly.

Blochead

July 22nd, 2006, 04:52 PM

[Africa]

The CoN was strongest here, with the lone effective opposition consisting primarily of Egypt (which was more active in the Mideast and Mediterranean zone anyway) and the US/PAC presence of Liberia and Sierra Leone. However, the PAC was determined not to let that last. The CIA provided heavy backing to anti-CoN regimes in Chad and Somalia, and used unmanned vehicles and teams of heavily enhanced ‘supersoldiers’ (more on this later) to disrupt ACSU peacekeeping operations in the Congo, which by now many believed were foreign-instigated.

And with the ACSU formally at war, when Liberia requested a commonwealth status or at least an observing-member position with the US/PAC, the ACSU responded by pumping troops into neighboring nations and attempting to instigate a coup in the country. Unfortunately for their efforts, most Liberians were happy with the progress their nation had made with US help in the past 20 years, neo-colonial policy aside. And thus began the West African theater of the War. Far from the mythical proportions of carnage found in Quebec and Europe, the West African War, like the one going on in Central America, was an extremely high-tech bush war. With the prevalence of powered armor and ‘transhuman’ enhancements for elite units, small, highly mobile groups of infantry, light vehicles, and aircraft with massive amounts of firepower waged war throughout the area, with a blatant disregard for national borders. It is for this reason that these historians will not go in depth, battle by battle, for no convenient lines can be drawn. Those looking for further information should reference the document ‘Fury in the Sahel: The African theater in the ‘Final’ War’. However, the conflict in Africa, while confusing, did have serious influence on the course of events on the continent. While never reaching deep into the ACSU the way the war would on other continents, it set up sub-Saharan Africa as a battle-tested but relatively intact power. But of course, in the short term, Saharan Africa suffered greatly. Despite the huge progress beginning to occur in the 2050s and 2060s on reducing carbon emissions, droughts were still at their crippling level that the world had come to know. Another major problem was the reliance on foreign facilities and technology for power generation, which the CIA and the USMC were quick to destroy whenever a country seemed to lead too far towards the CoN. In the former nation of Somalia, there was a coup and an attempted secession, followed by a return of CoN martial law, with many similar events to come as the war dragged on.

[Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, and Posthumanism]

While technology had certainly been a deciding factor in previous 21st century conflict, no previous engagement employed it in such numbers and on such a radical scale. The most obvious change in warfare was the advent of ‘transhuman’ and ‘posthuman’ technologies in warfare on a scale never before seen.

In the late 2050s, major US and USE corporations developed the first nanotech based neural receptors, basically backups to the human brain. Inserted via injection to the bloodstream, the nanites self-assembled at key locations on the human brain, forming processing and transmitting stations that could transmit a few centimeters away from the body. The information gathered from these transmitters could be further processed by onboard computers in the user’s vehicle or powered armor, or even personal computers connected to major networks. The revolution in affairs was obvious.

For the first time, large scale network centric warfare was truly possible. The most inefficient component in such networks previously was the ability of the human brain to process this information; now any military with the money and technology could eliminate that to an extent never before seen. However, this itself did not necessarily make the scale of conflict smaller, in fact, in many cases where both sides had access, conflicts became massive (mainly the American and European theaters) as both sides used their new technology to coordinate titanic amounts of weaponry and vehicles. But it also, in conjunction with high-mobility forces, made warfare far more chaotic in some regions when the opposing side didn’t have similarly equipped units in theater. CIA and US Special Forces units equipped with high-performance power armor wrought havoc on less advanced ACSU units in the CoN satellite states in Africa, with often entire battalions of armies from nations like Niger and Chad being eliminated by a few dozen, power-armor equipped ‘supermen’, as they became known.

Development of other new ‘transhuman’ technology was also occurring, though not all of it would be in use early in the war. Other self-assembling nanites could be used to create a human-weapon interface, where transponders linked to the nervous system in the palms of the hand could interact with special electronic grips on weapons, improving accuracy. Medics would later use nanites to help treat wounds that were difficult to operate on in a battlefield situation. And of course, nanotechnology continued to be key to the development of armor that could withstand the ever-increasing destructive power of modern weaponry.

Biotech was also quite important in the mid-late 21st century battlefield. Both sides would employ laboratory tailored herbicides to decrease the other’s capacity for warfare, and although still hotly debated today, there is evidence that could point to tailored biotech viruses that could have caused the various outbreaks of Refugee Flu or the Mumbai Virus. In the case of the latter, it is more than probable that the Persian government, which acted completely without restraint in later stages of the war, may have tried to use the Mumbai Virus as a last-ditch effort to blackmail the Indians into peace. Instead, when it was finally released, it merely enflamed conflict as most weapons did.
Of course, there were far more productive uses of biotechnology developed and refined during the war. Universities and labs in the PAC, SEATO, and USE all were able to produce new organs and limbs for those wounded using a variety of different means, and new strains of pathogen-resistant plants ultimately prevented starvation on a Malthusian scale in the developed world, except when destruction of infrastructure prevented proper distribution.

Constantinople

July 31st, 2006, 07:04 PM

So, is SEATO fighting india now? What would you say the death toll is now? What are the number of people in space these days?

Blochead

July 31st, 2006, 07:25 PM

No, India isn't at war with SEATO... Yet.

Blochead

August 1st, 2006, 02:31 AM

[2063-2065]

[Americas]

In Quebec, the nation that was once a proud, independent republic is reduced to masses of refugees and a third-world standard of living in most areas. The US and Canada quickly occupy the country and put it under martial law, with a pending Canadian annexation. Canadians, of course, are not quite eager to take Quebec ‘back’, as that would mean providing massive amounts of aid money to areas within their own border, and giving Quebecois the right to vote.

By 2065, the Quebecois front is over in terms of major conventional engagements. A few guerilla pockets remain inside the cities, mostly, but any relief provided by PAC is carefully set up in ‘secure’ areas beyond them, as the absolute destruction has made the construction of modern cities too much of a hindrance for military operations.

For the US, though, there are far more tasks ahead.

In Southern Mexico, the new battle line is drawn, with conventional land forces fighting it out in south-central Mexico and a variety of aerial and irregular units fighting behind the lines. Martial law is declared as far north as Mexico City, and anyone who shows any sign of support for the so-called ‘Latin American Brethren-Liberators’ disappears at the hands of local militias and the CIA. On the other side of the border, the CIA funds resistance groups in the Mexican Commonwealth and Chiapas Commonwealth that perform what many call terror raids (and with good reason) on collaborators with the CoN occupation governments.

During 2064, the first of a new weapon begin to arrive in Mexico, the ‘Wolverine’ SuperHeavy Battle Tank, or SHBT. Powered by a small nuclear reactor, managed by a nanointegrated human crew and carbon computer ‘AI’, the Wolverine is used as hammer to the regular military’s anvil, smashing through whatever conventional forces the CoN could field in Mexico. Though some CoN-backed resistance remained in the Commonwealth of Chiapas by 2065, the US had managed to purge its Mexican lands of any major resistance by the end of the year. When put on the field in a combined-arms doctrine, the tank-heavy US forces were able to finally ‘take back the continent’ to a reasonable degree. And despite terrain that was traditionally harmful to tanks, the rate of advance wasn’t hindered by the massive Wolverines. After breaking through at Puebla, the PAC would inevitably have to face another mass of regrouping CoN troops, with the communication brought by better NCW also accelerating the ability of the enemy to respond. The advanced PDS of the Wolverines could also provide a certain level of protection for nearby units, so it even saw action in some of the less-dense urban areas, or areas where the conditions of the city were so bad the Wolverine’s ability to drive through anything was an actual advantage.

Under the cover of the US Atlantic Fleet, which broke through to the Yucatan in the spring of 2065, the PAC pounded the coasts of Mexico and landed a joint Cuban-USMC invasion force into the Commonwealth of Chiapas. But no matter how much land the US retook, the specter of South America remained relatively unmolested. And so early on, both sides committed themselves to space superiority.

The Atlantic Space Elevator was the pride of the CoN, the largest man made structure created so far. But it was also far from being a mere testament to human ingenuity; it was also the primary means of earth-to-orbit space freight for South America. Even before the war, it had been one of the primary means for constructing the Community Space Peace Force, and its schedule had only been accelerated as the war broke out.

So in late 2063, the US blew it completely off the map. The Atlantic Alliance (former ANG) controlled Lunar Mass Driver launched a full freight load of lunarcrete inside a reinforced casing directly at the base of the Atlantic Space elevator, causing it to impact with 250 kilotons of force due to its heavy, protective shell. Striking directly at the base of the Space Elevator and placed in a TOT attack with a missile detonating at roughly 20,000 km, the entire structure was completely destroyed, and the results of the shockwave threw Sao Luis into chaos. A second projectile was fired into the Kenyan Space Elevators within two hours, and by then the CoN issued a statement saying that the use of the Lunar Mass Driver against Earth was ‘… just as illegal and immoral as the nuclear weapons it is in substitution for…’. In 2064, the CoN bloc decided to remove the veto power of the permanent UNSC seats. Despite the UN’s apparent uselessness in the conflict, the US decided that without their veto power, the numerical superiority of CoN membership would make their presence useless. Already full of ‘Gadsen Flag Fervor’, the US withdrew from the United Nations after the legislation was passed, followed by the United Kingdom and PAC members.

Rather than attempting to restore the UN to the ‘international forum’ role it had earlier served, the CoN capitalized on its earlier success and essentially took over the organization, with the non-CoN nations hoping whatever policies they had wouldn’t be penalized for following the ‘moral and just’ path of the CoN.

Earlier, the CoN threatened to use nuclear weapons if the Lunar Mass Driver was ever used again. More out of fear of losing its valuable space infrastructure than out of the CoN nuclear arsenal on Earth (for the extensive network of ‘Star Wars’ technology was what had kept extra-regional strategic weapons from being used against the US), the stators calmed and the reactors cooled on Earth’s natural satellite.

Domestically, great changes were happening within the PAC and the US. The US government passed the National Service Act, which required several years of service in a specified ‘national service’ after turning 18 and kept on a reserve warning until 40. Though volunteer rates were already high, it ensured that less ‘enthusiastic’ Americans could be put in rear line jobs, keeping the more spirited men on the front. It also set up important frameworks for US home defense that had been strained and broken during the conflict in Mexico.

Within the PAC, with the walk out from the UN came a new attitude about the ‘social democratic’ ideals the CoN had espoused. Though hardly new, propaganda circulated by non-governmental, ‘non-partisan’ research groups talked about how quasi-socialism pervaded CoN governments, and that the market was so regulated that it forced people to revert to old socialist methods of commerce. While this is to some extent true (in many parts of the CoN, like parts of the USE and Argentina especially, the public sector or private jobs that relied ‘heavily’ on the public sector were as high as 60% before the war (Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 2061), the CoN was more similar to the old Cold War ‘social market’ ideals than socialist stereotypes.

Using various UN charters and resolutions (proposed or passed) that talked about social markets, global resource management and conservation, and the demilitarization and re-internationalization of space, many radical authors had convinced Americans that the CoN had been planning their takeover of the UN and the formation of World Government for years, and the war had given them an excuse to accelerate their changes. This was, to some degree true, though how much the CoN actually planned this is a matter of historic contention. But about this time, the phrase ‘War for Sovereignty’ came into full force, becoming popular in editorials in 2063 onward, though globally the more politically correct term has of course been the ‘Final War’ or ‘World War IV’, much to the chagrin of Americans.

The war had not been started over these issues, but by now, it had manifested them. Just as World War II had started out as a war over the ownership of various territories in Europe and balance of power and ended as a conflict over the future of the world’s political systems and the survival of democracy, this war had gone from a realist-based spat over strategic basing and instead become the violent expression of clashing economics, politics, cultures, and ideas on a truly global scale.

David bar Elias

August 1st, 2006, 03:10 AM

Looks like the CoN's getting the stuffing beaten out of it...(excellent!!!:D), but the PAC still has South America and Europe to deal with.....

Keep it up! :)

Blochead

August 1st, 2006, 03:19 AM

Thanks, though I wouldn't count them out yet... They also have the superpower of India, and the lesser powers like South Africa and the ACSU.

David bar Elias

August 1st, 2006, 03:22 AM

How far will your TL progress?

Blochead

August 1st, 2006, 03:27 AM

I can't really tell you that. When I originally wrote it, I planned to kill everything off in the China war and have it over with, but I decided to keep playing with it.

I figure I will at least go into a decade or two after the war to show the 'new world order' that emerges, but who knows.

Even if I stop writing new years of history, there's still so much more material that could revisited in the form of fake articles, books, and new fiction.

So you can expect to see me kicking this thing around on the forum for a long time yet :D

David bar Elias

August 1st, 2006, 03:29 AM

Sounds great.....:D

Blochead

August 1st, 2006, 04:08 PM

[Europe]

As the bloody years marched on, Europe became more and more disorganized. With 2063 brought the arrival of more troops from Russia, and the turning point in the battle in Europe.

Sparing no time to rebuild anything but logistical infrastructure in Poland, fresh Russian troops and the remnants of the British and Scandinavian air forces broke through the remaining USE defenses after heavy use of high-altitude EMP detonations and neutron bombs. Pushing through the old Fulda Gap, a smaller force was detached to ‘liberate’ Denmark, which was accomplished by 2064. When it looked as if the USE was going to lose France and the Benelux area, they rallied around Cologne and evacuated Brussels, moving the government to Italy. Deciding that their nation was doomed without them, the USE authorized use of its full nuclear arsenal against the encroaching threat. Simultaneously launching missiles from SSGNs and bases in unoccupied Europe with a declaration of intent, the USE detonated strategic-level neutron bombs over the NEI forces outside Cologne on November 3rd of 2064, and then full-grade hydrogen bombs against the British ships supporting the assault in the English Channel. The USE also detonated strategic-level, enhanced-EMP nukes over the UK and Scandinavia, hoping to convince the NEI that victory would only lead to complete destruction, and that a compromise had to be made.

But the NEI merely responded in proportion, putting Europe under a nuclear-initiated blackout and destroying most major concentrations of USE troops in Western and Central Europe. Looking at what happened to Germany; Austria seceded as NEI troops prepared to invade to create a corridor to Italy, along with Holland, both nations declaring themselves neutral rather than throwing their reserves into the fight against the NEI or supporting them and risking a nuclear attack by the USE.

As 2065 dawned, the war ground to a halt on both sides. Despite having finally taken Brussels, many nations of the NEI were disaster areas. The UK still experienced a lack of power in most areas, and PAC relief there was simply not enough to keep the war effort going so strongly. Poland was a functioning country only in name, Russian peacekeepers kept it from descending into complete anarchy, but just barely. Food riots were devastating Central Europe, and in the hot summer of 2065, the USE simply stopped existing. Italy seceded as part of a peace deal with the NEI, so did Luxembourg. Spain and Portugal quietly left, and the former set about attempting to keep the Basques and Catalan as part of their country. As fall came and the food shortages worsened, the USE government (which had moved to France) threw in the towel. The great experiment in quasifederal social democracy had succumbed to the sort of war that had created it in the first place.

A similar situation coming about in the NEI was only averted due to the presence of foreign troops from Russia and Eastern Europe. The victory against the USE had come about at the expense of all of Europe itself, and most were unsure it was worth it.

But some response did come. The Irish, of all nations, intervened in the UK to help keep the country together. Finland deployed troops to Eastern and Central Europe, while Russia continued to bear the brunt of peacekeeping tasks. But it was too early to see any kind of major improvement in the devastated continent of Europe.

Vince

August 1st, 2006, 04:28 PM

Excellent. All that remains is to see the PAC beat down South America again. :cool:

Pyro

August 1st, 2006, 04:30 PM

I can hardly wait to see wait happens next. I do have a question about the possibility of Canada annexing Quebec, is it possible Canada would annex The part of Quebec the southern bank of the St. Lawerence River and the Gaspe Pennisula? It would provide a land bridge between Ontario and the Maritimes.

Constantinople

August 1st, 2006, 05:04 PM

Woah, that..is...eh, too bad. Nukes were not used on cities then?
(BTW, what is the population of the world supposed to be before the war started?)

Blochead

August 1st, 2006, 05:08 PM

Nukes were detonated over cities (at very high altitude) to generate EMP, but no, no cities were directly destroyed by nukes.

Population is roughly 7 billion in 2060, didn't rise as much because a lot of the high growth areas stabilized, and in many nations the economy makes it more advantageous to have less kids rather than have a bunch to go work in the farms or at sweatshops and the like. India is the world's largest nation, though.

Constantinople

August 1st, 2006, 05:14 PM

I see, well youve done a nice job of destroying Europe, but dont you think you should give the basques their own, nice state?:p

I know that you said you really couldnt tell us the death toll for the whole war, but now that the European part of the war is over, do you have some idea?

Also, what did the USE do with the monarchies?

Blochead

August 1st, 2006, 05:32 PM

The Basques are in the process of applying for independence, since the USE treated them as a seperate 'member' from Spain in a lot of ways. However, Spain, Italy, and Portugal are still in fairly good shape and Spain isn't very eager to give up any of its old land.

The European death toll...

On the USE side, roughly 2.7 million soldiers die as a result of the conflict, most of them French and Germans. This includes militia and conscript units from the latter stages of the war.

7 million civilians die directly from the war or during the span of the conflict due to war-related causes. These include starvation, Refugee Flu, and radiation poisoning.

In the NEI, about 2.1 million soldiers die, and 3 million civilians, mainly since major fighting only entered Denmark on the NEI side.

In the post-war era, both blocs will suffer severely from food shortages, disease, and other poverty-related causes. In the USE, the large, prosperous middle class basically evaporates and plunges into poverty, and the NEI doesn't fare much better economically.

EDIT: As for the monarchies, under the USE quasifederal system, they are allowed to exist as long as they stay constitutionally limited.

Constantinople

August 1st, 2006, 05:51 PM

Thanks for answering those questions. Hope you dont mind eventully answering a few more.

How is Venice fairing these days? How far has devolution gone in the UK with wales and scotland and N ireland (seeing as it has a majority of catholics)

Is Poland and Ireland still fairly catholic as compared to the rest of europe?

Blochead

August 1st, 2006, 06:00 PM

Scotland is about at the level it is today, there were a few flare ups (in the 2030s, when some Scots pushed independence because they didn't like having Scottish boys die in Asia), same with Wales.

Northern Ireland is quite peaceful, part of the negotiations allows freer movement between the two parts of Ireland, though because Northern Ireland is Irish by a vast majority, it may join the Irish Republic if the UK government doesn't fare well during the postwar era.

Venice has been preserved mainly due to a complex system of waterworks and engineering developed by the USE.

And yes, Poland and Ireland are still very Catholic, though there are still a lot of Orthodox Slavs in Poland who had come over originally for work from the Ukraine and Belarus.

Constantinople

August 1st, 2006, 06:06 PM

Ooone last question, is the Patriarch still in istanbul?

Blochead

August 1st, 2006, 06:24 PM

Yep, except for a brief period during the Turkish Civil War.

Blochead

August 2nd, 2006, 03:49 AM

[Asia]

While in some areas of the world, the war was coming to an end, in Asia, things were only starting to heat up.

Persian soldiers rallied in former Pakistan to hold off the advance of the Indian forces, and a cease-fire was put into effect, albeit briefly.
Arabia, after watching Israeli troops deployed to the Suez Peninsula and the SEATO carrier battle groups now deployed in the Arabian and Red Seas, followed through on its declaration of war and threw its ill-trained and ill-equipped military, much of it still armed with retrofitted surplus weapons from the Caliphate glory years, against Israeli forces. They were basically slaughtered by the IAF and the IDF Armored Corps, and as a result, in early February, Arabia prepared to launch a good portion of its nuclear arsenal at Israel.

SEATO, detecting the preparations for launch and responding as the first missiles went into the air, called down a ‘rain of fire and steel’, as one Arabian Strategic Missile Force commander described it, within seconds of their launch. Anticipating such a tactic by the volatile Arabian military-nepotist government, EM accelerated KE weapons bombarded Arabia from the SEATO Orbital Defense Platforms, virtually eliminating the Arabian Air Force and the ASMF within a few minutes. The Israeli Missile Defense system handled the few nukes that were launched before SEATO’s orbital strike, and as SEATO troops landed in Arabia, they found a nation in chaos. When the SEATO CBGs sailed into the Red Sea and landed troops, one Australian commander reported watching a mass of regular Arabian army remnants and militia forces massing outside their landing area in the suburbs of Jizan, he simply called down an ODP strike on them, and when his mobile infantry detachment arrived, resistance had melted. Especially in the heavily Shi’a regions of Arabia, where anti-Persian propaganda had stirred Sunnis into violence, Arabians were more interested in killing each other than the SEATO forces. Local Arabian leaders blamed them for being Persian collaborators who wanted to use SEATO and Israel as allies in their takeover of the Holy Land.

By April of 2063, SEATO had taken the decaying capital of the Arabian nation, and the ‘war’ on that little bit of Asia seemed over. Conventionally, that is. SEATO had to balance their policy of ‘respecting Mecca’ with fighting insurgents, and in the most holy of Arabian provinces, insurgents used their monuments as shields against even the orbital attacks of the SEATO ODP.

India did not sit idly by, though. In 2064 the ceasefire ended when Indian vessels engaged SEATO and US fleets in the battle for Diego Garcia, which SEATO was using as a segment in their logistical tail from East Asia to Arabia. No nukes were exchanged, but the battle was essentially a stalemate. Though SEATO and US forces lost a few more ships than India did, Persia’s constant bombardment of many Indian ports meant India had fewer ships to spare. And SEATO, with the world’s biggest and arguably best navy, had plenty more where their first expeditionary forces came from. The Battles of Sri Lanka in early 2065, where SEATO attempted to use the island as a springboard onto the subcontinent, resulted in India’s rebuffing of SEATO invasion forces at the expense of much of their remaining navy. But in both Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Indian commanders were outclassing their SEATO counterparts, who had focused far less on engagements of those scales.

As the war broke out, Burma was a de facto SEATO member, as India was planning to go through it to strike at South East Asia whether the Burmese liked that or not. As in Central America and Africa, the conventional forces of both sides quickly bogged down and lost momentum, and the war along the SEATO-India land border became a high-tech guerilla war against infrastructure and morale by both sides. And nestled deep within each side’s borders were heavy strategic defenses that made major aerial strikes virtually impossible. Most attacks were done by surgical UCAV or cruise missile launches that were small, fast, or stealthy enough to evade the other’s detection.

Meanwhile, the US, drawn into the conflict via Diego Garcia, quickly steps up arms shipments to SEATO of certain weaponry. Wolverine SHBTs are sent, along with advanced space weaponry to be used against CoN and Indian assets during the conflict. Despite being a smaller power, the US had an advantage in weapons technology in many areas due to highly advanced sentinent AIs like the ‘Henry’ series industrial engineering analysts, which were put into work with R&D teams earlier in the war.

SEATO, in turn, began shipping weapons through Central Asia and Afghanistan into Persia, which was losing industrial capacity to the Indian military juggernaut. And of course, India was pushing Kurdistan to step up attacks against Persia and US ally Turkey.

From Kirkuk to Kyaukpyu, war and violence had enveloped Asia in 2065.

Blochead

August 2nd, 2006, 02:39 PM

A couple dozen more views but no comments?

Michael Canaris

August 2nd, 2006, 03:13 PM

Brilliant! I do regret the fall of the USE, though.

Blochead

August 2nd, 2006, 03:25 PM

Brilliant! I do regret the fall of the USE, though.

I was hoping I'd get some more response about the fall of the USE. At first I thought I was depicting them much more negatively than I intended... I guess I just have a lot of readers who don't like the concept of a EU superpower with a strong foreign policy...

Vince

August 2nd, 2006, 05:31 PM

I was hoping I'd get some more response about the fall of the USE. At first I thought I was depicting them much more negatively than I intended... I guess I just have a lot of readers who don't like the concept of a EU superpower with a strong foreign policy...

To me the CoN/USE seemed to be put in a very bad light in the posts because they seemed to put its nose in places it wasn't wanted (outside of Africa) especially against the allies of other Superpower Blocs. They also caused several flashpoints for conflict where it didnt exist before (ex. The lunar bases)

The posts about the war seem to show almost right after war was declared they went after cities instead of strictly military targets (i.e. Ottowa is devestated and NY suffers a missle attack).

Ergo, I am very happy at seeing the CoN go down in flames. :D

Blochead

August 2nd, 2006, 06:58 PM

Kind of interesting you say that... The CoN is basically a morally righteous 'balancing force' that seeks to end hegemony by well... Being a multilateral hegemony. It's a bit of a role reversal, with the US as a secondary power trying to build up a regional bloc and regain power and influence, and the CoN doing everything it can to prevent destabilizing new powers from coming about and defending smaller nations on a basis of shared ideology and resource interests.

As for the targeted city-bombings, however surgical... The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Blochead

August 3rd, 2006, 02:37 AM

http://img445.imageshack.us/img445/6599/2075cz1.png

A little post-war sneak preview... Yes, I'm finishing up the rest of the war and the early postwar era.

The Final War (so called because it was the 'Final War' of the old international order that had persisted for 30 or so years) or the War for Sovereignty (Name generally used by people in the PAC), has been over for a few years, but recovery is coming very slowly, even in Europe where it's been over for a decade and a half. Gray nations (or gray stripes) indicate nations that haven't met the average 'recovery' level, which looks at the economy and standard of living around the world today and at the nations' individual pre-war levels. Most devastated are the Andean, European, and Persia-Pakistan Recovery Zones (though Persia says that it has 'met' the Recovery Level after the decay of its empire in the 2070s).

David bar Elias

August 3rd, 2006, 03:25 AM

Surrprised the PAC would allow any kind of Republic of Quebec after that.....

I'm assuming the political unification of North America will continue after the war, with many ups and downs.....;)

Blochead

August 3rd, 2006, 03:36 AM

Well, they took away most of its land, and its essentially a puppet government. However, a lot of Canadians aren't sure they want to have Quebec back, because that would mean, well... Helping them with their money and such, and most Canadians want the damage the war has done to Canada and the PAC completely fixed before they start helping their old enemies.

Constantinople

August 3rd, 2006, 09:02 AM

Blochead

August 3rd, 2006, 10:01 PM

I am very happy to see the end of the USE. The socialist nightmare, and cultural decaying entity it appeared to be.

It looks like the PAC, especially the USA, comes out of the war fairly well, maybe more of a power than before.

In the recovery zones in Europe, what exactly caused the need for such a long recovery? Food shortages and EMP blasts?

What side is Hungary Austian and slovakia on? How was Hungary affected by the war?

Well, the problem is that in Central Europe, basically all electronic devices are fried. Combine that with the destruction of farmland, and they're nowhere close to their prewar level... Behind the ACSU in a lot of ways. The other problem is that there's no remaining power really that willing to help them. The NEI is tending to its own wounds, PAC has to deal with South America, ACSU with Africa, SEATO with Mideast.

Austria was a former USE member, but seceded, Hungary and Slovakia were neutral.

Constantinople

August 3rd, 2006, 10:57 PM

Does that go for England also?

Blochead

August 13th, 2006, 02:26 AM

[2065-2071]
[Americas]

The 2065 Special Forces deployment into Panama had helped push out the CoN, but now the PAC was dedicated on completely destroying their power in South America, not just pushing it back to the original borders. With the destruction of the USE as a polity, Lundberg delivers his ‘Rising Tide’ speech in New York in 2066, coinciding with the USMC push into Colombia. Army forces bypass Central America and land in Panama, preparing for a truly devastating push into the Andean nations.

However, the bottleneck does not lend itself to an effective advance. So in fall 2066, what the PACDEFCOM referred to as the ‘Hard Rain’ began, with the ANG Lunar Mass Driver reactivated and annihilating not only many CoN forces in the Darien Gap, but most of the city of Turbo as well. The PAC also stepped up air attacks on major cities and industrial complexes throughout the Andean nations, and a second landing force was prepared to land in Caracas after another season of ‘Hard Rain’ in 2067, followed by a pattern of EMP devices launched from orbit that devastated the region. In the bloodiest battles of the wars for the PAC yet, the Caracas Front was opened up and, ironically, the PAC was pushing down the old ‘Pan-American Highway’ through Venezuela. Other forces split off and moved to destroy the regions of Colombia and Venezuela that had been cut off by the advance.

The embedded media that the PAC viewers had come to love was now heavily regulated, watching events only from a distance. Relatively few in the US saw what their soldiers had to do. Adopting what the military had learned from the African conflict, a ‘mobile infantry’ doctrine sent power-armored raiding units with UCAV support to destroy CoN supply lines and infrastructure. Whenever guerilla resistance was encountered, it was destroyed. Colombia especially incurred a huge combatant body count on both sides, as CoN counter-advances broke down into guerilla units. Brazilian troops were streaming to the front by the end of 2068, and soon the highlands were a battle zone.

Neil Lundberg’s legacy fought on as the EP retained the Presidency. Simon Echevarria of California vows to end the war on US terms. But the CoN does not go any easier on him. When the ‘Hard Rain’ returns again after new EMP munitions were lifted up, Brazil launches a tactical nuclear pattern over the border, directed at the forces concentrated near Santa Elena de Uarien. The US responds by launching mass driver rounds over major Brazilian military and industrial sites. The war continued, for the nations of South America refused to accept an unconditional surrender. The mass driver was limited by ammunition, and Brazil and Argentina still had some capacity to fight.

On the Chilean front, the PAC had ensured the survival of the smaller nation against overwhelming odds. Chile’s natural geographic defenses had helped sabotage major offensives, and a well-trained army and PAC technology kept the Chilean force on par with anything the CoN threw at them. In 2067 with CIA backing, right-wing rebels in Santa Cruz split from the decaying government. But by 2070, the PACDEFCOM decided to finish the war. The ACSU was mobilizing ships with fresh troops to the fight, something the US would be hard pressed to repel if they reached land.

The demands were simple. Unconditional surrender; or the PACDEFCOM will eliminate the capitals and major commercial and population centers of the Latin American nations, one by one. When the ACSU launches missiles at the Lunar complex, the PAC demonstrates their willingness to carry out their threat by launching tactical yields at the offending ACSU bases, and the ports they were mobilizing men to.

And one by one, the nations of Latin America capitulated. Whether or not the PAC would have followed through with their doomsday threat remains a matter of debate to this day. A truce was negotiated at the end of the year in Geneva and signed the next. For the Americas, the war was over.

Constantinople

August 27th, 2006, 11:01 PM

Gah why does noone else respond to this!? This is one of the best TL's here. So the war for sovereignty has ended, what shape is the US and PAC now, are they back to a top of the world position, shared with SEATO now?
Please dont think people do not want this continued!

TheLoneAmigo

August 28th, 2006, 12:01 AM

Yes, we're all waiting to see what happens post-war.

WhatIsAUserName

August 28th, 2006, 12:23 AM

Blochead

August 28th, 2006, 01:06 AM

So the ACSU (heh, WI it was the ACLU), India, and Brazil are the only nations in the CoN that aren't complete war torn battlegrounds? That is, people could still live their normal lives with some difficulty?

I would say Argentina, the majority of India (Norhwest India is in bad shape due to Persian bioweapons and a few tacnukes), Sub-Saharan Africa, and Mediterranean Europe (not including France) are the main areas. Brazil's industrial sector and infrastructure took a big hit towards the very end of the war.

However the entire world will suffer from the war on some level, the countries that do not participate all rely in some way on at least one of the countries or organizations that did.

And don't worry guys, I have not forgotten about this TL, but now that I have Franco-American updates may not come as often. With two TLs running though, I guarantee I'll be pumping out history somewhere on the site.

xchen08

September 10th, 2006, 12:09 AM

Wait, is the war over? The Africans and Indians haven't surrendered yet right? The U.S. could probably just keep throwing rocks on them until they do. For that matter, why haven't they been EMPed like europe?

Blochead

September 10th, 2006, 01:44 AM

Yep. Seeing as PAC could indiscrimantely throw rocks down and that the CoN spaceforce in Africa was destroyed by the US earlier, the ACSU tries to save itself the trouble of getting EMPed more heavily (previously only military centers had been hit) and declares a cease fire, same with India when SEATO looks poised to make a breakthrough in Burma...

BlackMage

September 18th, 2006, 06:09 AM

I've just (finally) finished reading this TL, and 'brilliant' is all I can say. Oh yes, and that I do wish you hadn't destroyed the USE, which I was rooting for even as I knew that, sooner or later, this sort of thing always happens.

I do hope you update again soon; incidently, what will the death toll, overall, from the Final War be?

Constantinople

October 17th, 2006, 10:18 PM

Okay so its been a month since this was on the front page, and well, its gone so far only to be semi forgotten.

Constantinople

November 12th, 2006, 08:42 AM

Another month goes by! What happens in Asia? Good old europe?

Blochead

November 12th, 2006, 08:13 PM

I will get back to this, I promise... Next week I'll have some material, right now I'm doing stuff for FAWTL.

Blochead

November 14th, 2006, 08:11 PM

[2066-2080]

[Asia-Pacific]

India mobilized for its ‘final offensive’ into Persia, clearing the way with neutron and EMP weaponry along with the ‘Juggernaut’ (SEATO designation) SHBTs, designed to counter PAC Wolverines sent to SEATO and later Persia. In 2068, Indian forces won the battle of Zahedan at heavy cost, and plotted a strike to take the Hormuz. But Persia retaliated and SEATO landed troops in Bangladesh in the spring of 2069, causing a massive contraction in battle lines as India rushed to fill its gaps. Seeing the war with SEATO as fruitless, India called for a cease fire and declared peace in 2070, only to pursue further conflict in Persia (Though SEATO forces remained in Arabian nations to ‘protect their sovereignty’). Conflict ended in 2071 with the Persian Revolution and the establishment of a military ‘emergency government’ to prevent secession movements from Persia’s outer provinces. The war seemed to be over.

The cost, however, was staggering. The Middle East, save for Persia and Egypt, had been reduced to lack of development, and Indian GDP per capita fell sharply. Some felt that the devastation in India’s north was similar to the devastation in China’s: India, like China 50 years ago, had reached a point of resource consumption and power that required a ‘balancing out’. This Malthusian view, while debatable, does not mean that India was not crippled by the war. Though far better off than Europe and the Andean nations, India was no longer the great power it used to be.

SEATO had effectively beaten off the last enemy on the continent, and the PAC seemed to be of little consequence. They now turned to cementing their newfound influence across the globe.

[Europe]

If there was anything to be said about Europe throughout this time period, it would have to be said about its newfound and total dependence on foreigners. Not just other nations, but those of other continents seemed to be pursuing a policy that 75 years before would have been called ‘neocolonialism’. Ireland supplied much of the UK and the former USE’s high-tech materials, while other manufactured goods came from everywhere but Europe. The SNP had a massive resurgence. “It’s not like the English can say we’re reliant on them anymore. We’re all reliant on the damned Asians or Yanks, so why not be reliant and at least have our own nation?” asked one Scotsman. Britain campaigned heavily against Scottish independence, but after the 2075 referendum, SEATO threatened to cut off aid if Britain did not recognize the results. Northern Ireland was reunited with the South in 2073. But Britain itself recovered much more quickly than their continental counterparts, and through the backing of the PAC was able to reject further ‘imperialist’ advances by SEATO.

France also was one of the quicker nations to recover, though the process was not complete by 2080 simply due to the scale of infrastructure damage. Germany and Poland remained a mess. Mutated strains of Refugee Flu swept the region, resulting in a containment zone that SEATO peacekeepers stationed in the region enforced.

SEATO itself established, through a pact with the NEI, a series of military bases throughout Eastern Europe. SEATO peacekeepers and aid workers totaled 3 million in their peak in 2074, but remained a presence in the region.

The Mediterranean Zone was established through the Med. Sea Pact of 2069, an economic recovery and political bloc that included Spain, Portugal, Italy, Algeria, Morocco and Libya. France sold Corsica in 2070 to Italy, and the Mediterranean Zone maintained close ties with SEATO in the region. By 2080, all MedZone nations were considered fully recovered, though they found difficulty in controlling with the mass immigration created by the Final War.
[Africa]

PAC and SEATO expanded their influence across the ex-CoN nations, helping to establish infrastructure and aid in hopes of creating a group of allied nations to oppose ACSU resurgence. One of the more ambitious projects included creating the Sahel as an economic powerhouse through a multitude of industrial and agricultural measures, though some say this was to create a market for their goods.

The ACSU itself came out the strongest of the former CoN groups, and the war only furthered their resolve. Reform programs were the new focus, and rather than expand the ACSU hoped to take advantage of their new position in the world. A new space elevator was announced in 2076, to be built in the Indian Ocean near Kenya, symbolic of the new shift of power away from the USE and Latin America, and back towards Asia.

[Americas]

The EP faced a divided government of some kind up until 2076, when it was put out of office. The UP focused on veteran’s benefits and creating economic opportunities. As the situation clearly favored free trade due to the US’s relative economic power, the UP backed away from some of its usually protectionist policies. The UP also allied with Canadian conservatives in rejecting an expansion of the PAC into a ‘USE style system’, and reform for the time seemed out of the question in all areas except that of the military. PACDEFCOM was not abolished; it merely stood down without the threat of a major war. The PAC now included Chile and Santa Cruz, while Central American nations began to consider joining the alliance for the economic benefits. The alliance did not shun its former enemies, it did provide aid but with the implicit warning against Latin American re-armament by non-PAC members. The PAC also considered its own space elevator in the Pacific in the late 2070s, but the primary concern remained with recovery and expansion of the alliance.

xchen08

November 14th, 2006, 08:33 PM

Constantinople

November 15th, 2006, 05:01 AM

Oh, wow. So the US is again one of the prominant world powers.
Does Germany and Poland even have governments? You said uncontrolled immigration in the the MedCom countries, where is this from?
Has the NEI been expanded? No Basque independence?!
Sorry for all the questions! Good update!

Blochead

November 15th, 2006, 07:48 PM

Wait, the SNP actually won!!? I would think that Britain is the one place where SEATO has absolutely nothing to say, being firmly within the PAC sphere of interest in Europe. They certainly shouldn't be able to force Britain to accept a referendum for Scottish Independence, since most Aid to Britain would naturally come from the PAC.

Yeah... When people realized it was Washington and Singapore (SEATO capital) who were giving out aid rather than London, it was the final straw for the Scots.

And while the PAC may be a superpower, they are outmuscled by SEATO, and the US wasn't really willing to fight over Scotland and took a neutral stance in the matter. Really the US didn't want to start a second Cold War in Europe, so the US let it go. Canada was very supportive of the UK though, for obvious reasons... SEATO didn't force the referendum, they forced Britain to abide by it.

Oh, wow. So the US is again one of the prominant world powers.

Eh, kind of. Economically the PAC is in 2nd place, behind SEATO, previously it was roughly equal to the USE block. I guess in terms of power projection, but really there's no question about who the pre-eminent power is, and that's SEATO.

Does Germany and Poland even have governments?

Poland is run by an emergency regime set up by the NEI, while Germany is basically governed by SEATO.

You said uncontrolled immigration in the the MedCom countries, where is this from?

Old Europe mostly. There's also a lot of SEATO businessmen and 'carpetbaggers', one might say.

Has the NEI been expanded? No Basque independence?!

The NEI will probably expand later to include Scotland, Ireland, some of the Balkan/Central European countries...

Basques are semi-autonomous but aren't independent, since the USE command structure treated them as part of Spain for the war.

Sorry for all the questions! Good update!

No problem, and thanks :D

Constantinople

January 25th, 2007, 12:38 AM

Any sort of update in the works? Will we get to see a restored Germany or anything nice like that?

Blochead

January 25th, 2007, 12:47 AM

I'll be getting back to the TLs in awhile, right now I'm working on Glen's TL contest.

But eventually the war-torn nations will reunite. But I plan on some big political changes first. I guess I'm in a bit of an old Romantic mood, it might be time for a 'Spring of Nations'...

J_Britt_RSA

January 25th, 2007, 12:51 AM

Yay!

This is one of my favorite timelines on here.

Blochead

January 25th, 2007, 12:55 AM

Yay!

This is one of my favorite timelines on here.

Thank you... Your support isn't in vain :D .

Constantinople

January 25th, 2007, 01:57 AM

Oh cool, a bright spot in this rather gloomy future, a spring of nations. This too is one of my favorite threads.

Btw, how many people did die in the war, total?

David bar Elias

January 25th, 2007, 02:26 AM

Considering the excellent job you've done so far, I look forward to more. :cool:

"Spring of Nations," eh? Sounds great.

I'm guessing it'll revolve around some kind of pale version of the CoDominium....this time between the PAC and SEATO, and more benevolent. (With no UN, this could be the best way to secure peace and stability).

Blochead

January 25th, 2007, 09:07 PM

Total world casualties from 2062-2072 (The "10 Years Wars" title is the ATL scholarly name for the time period) are roughly 3% of the total world population, at the time this was 9 billion. Counting the indirect casualties from Refugee Flu, food shortages in Europe, radiation-related problems, deaths caused by population displacement in virtually every continent, and other aftereffects, casualties are over 500 million people.

There is also significant population stagnation re-emerging, particularly in the war-torn first world nations where a mix of economic problems and demographic imbalances are causing a decline in the birth rate. Even after wartime price controls, there is crop failure in many regions of the world that were reliant on technology, or were affected by the global temperature drop from the particles kicked up by nuclear weapons and orbital bombardment.

J_Britt_RSA

January 25th, 2007, 09:12 PM

Blochead

January 25th, 2007, 09:28 PM

Yeah... WWII was roughly 2.5% of global population by most figures... This war is higher in proportion because it literally touches everything. If one were to look at the combat related deaths, it would be similar in proportion, but the nature of the war means that you cannot ignore the indirect effects.

And yes, things are going to cool down for awhile, though in many nations, we'll see an increase in traditional greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation and use of 'dirty coal' persist in the later stages of the war. EMP knocks out personal solar panels, knocks back hydrogen production, powerplants, all sorts of stuff. Europe gets hit particularly hard, and the Northeastern US comes to a standstill for the early parts of the war, and has one of the worst winters of the 21st century. However, there isn't as much deforestation as in other regions because of relatively unaffected manufacturing centers that start to pump out windmills and tidal power generators. SEATO will play a similar role in the reconstruction of Europe.

Constantinople

January 25th, 2007, 10:44 PM

Blochead

January 25th, 2007, 11:14 PM

Im guessing the highest death toll was in India/Pakistan?
Is it possible that after the war europe, and ex first world contries that were devastated, could actully after the reconstruction be better off, as they have entirely new infastructures?

Yes, the highest casualties, both by proportion and by number, were in the India-Persia theater of operations.

And actually, yes, the war is going to radically change the infrastructure in the nations lucky enough to recieve significant foreign aid.

Constantinople

January 26th, 2007, 02:44 AM

What was the cultural damage to Europe? Was it significant?

Also, just a general future question but what is england like, just previous to the Final War? Are the cities still fairly historical (Ie, churches, historical buildings restored and such)? Does the Anglican Church still exhist?;)
Was London still an important center of trade and such?

Blochead

January 27th, 2007, 09:29 PM

Cultural damage is not as severe as economic damage, because EMP has much less of an effect on buildings/items of historic or cultural importance. But it is certainly bad: While area bombing of major civilian centers is nowhere near as severe as it was during WWII or my other TL's Great War, it is certainly not perfectly precise.

Pre-War London still retained much of its historical buildings, due to the 'ultra-efficiency' movement of architecture in the first half of the 21st century that sprung from energy supply shocks and emissions-cutting obligations. So most of the historical landmarks were still there, but over time much of the architecture had changed. London is still a major financial center. Before the lapse into trade wars between the USE-aligned nations and the Eastern European/North American aligned nations, it became a hub of trade between the Americas and the USE. The exacerbations in trade caused by the PAC/NEI and CoN pissing matches leading up to the war were offset by increased economic activity between the PAC and the NEI, and again Britain was a convenient location geographically.

Constantinople

February 19th, 2007, 10:05 PM

What ever happened to the week thingg?

Blochead

February 20th, 2007, 05:20 PM

[2081-2090]

[Asia]

In 2081, the Arab population of Persia revolted. As the religiously-united regions were now under an ethno-politically motivated government rather than the old theocratic regime, the injustices suffered by the minority populations of the Persian empire seemed inexcusable. A largely bloodless revolt overtook the regional government of Persian Iraq, and declared the Republic of Mesopotamia. Around this time, SEATO divested from Persia, leading to a growth in relations with the NEI. SEATO military bases were established along the Red Sea, and solidified its position as most powerful force in the region. Israel, one of the more successful nations, joined the NEI as an observing member. The Israelis had watched what SEATO pressure had done to Britain and feared that SEATO might attempt to appease discontent on the part of the Muslim population by going after Israel politically.

SEATO membership expanded to ironically, finally include all of Southeast Asia, and by 2090, most of Central Asia had also joined the alliance. After the influx of new members, in 2090 SEATO changed its name to simply ETO, or the Eastern Treaty Organization.

[Americas]

The UP continued political control, yet despite the old protectionist bent; they knew that there were serious international commitments they had to follow through on. Fearful of the surviving military powers, the UP provided aid to Britain and Scotland in exchange for renewed basing rights, and attempted to secure trading rights with post-war blocs.
In Latin America, the last of the authoritarian governments installed during the war by either side fell to a series of largely bloodless revolutions. Soldiers refused to fight their own populations, and instead restored democracy to the region. For many nations, it was the first time martial law had been lifted in nearly two decades. The ‘States of Emergencies’ were over. Some nations drifted towards the PAC sphere, while others remained hostile and instead courted SEATO.

Not all nations were satisfied with the conduct of SEATO post-war, however. Brazil refused to allow SEATO to base military forces in Latin America, and instead shaped itself as a self-reliant nation that would bring other Latin American nations out, free of poverty.

Argentina moved towards the ACSU, and trade between them increased rapidly (Partially due to increased demand for meat and industrial products in developing Africa). While Brazil’s new government was nationalistic and was not interested in entangling themselves in another ‘Old World War’, Argentina and the Andean nations gravitated towards the ACSU and SEATO.

In 2084, the PAC began construction of their Pacific Space Elevator, located off the coast of Ecuador, which joined the PAC in 2085. Increased power in space was one of the primary goals of the Pan-American Combine, for it seemed it may not have won the war without it.

[Europe]

Despite paranoia by the local populations, immigrants arriving to the Mediterranean Zone integrated fairly well by 2090, considering the circumstances. Loosening some of the regulations on business while still maintaining a strong safety net, the Zone prospered throughout these years. In 2083, France was admitted to the Mediterranean Zone as an associate member.

In Eastern Europe, however, elections brought in a series of anti-SEATO politicians who demanded the withdrawal of all SEATO military bases from the NEI by 2090. Although trade would continue, popular sentiment was against SEATO presence. Massive protests attempted to shut down the SEATO bases, and eventually the alliance relented.

2085 marked the year of the infamous Genoa Conference, in which SEATO promised a massive package in aid, greater in scale than the American recovery efforts post-WWII, in exchange for military basing rights in Western Europe which the NEI had widely rejected. Framing their actions as defensive ones, to keep the NEI from invading weakened Western Europe, most nations were forced to agree due to their reliance on SEATO aid and trade. The Eastern Standard Yuan became the most important currency, reunifying SEATO/ETO aligned Europe in 2089 after decades of fiscal chaos caused when the value of the Euro collapsed and national governments began printing out local currencies.

[Africa]

The PAC and SEATO solidified their gains in Africa, with Liberia and Sierra Leone joining as foreign associates of the Pan-American Combine in 2082, and virtually all of northern Africa aligning with the Mediterranean Zone and SEATO. The efforts to create both markets and improvements in infrastructure by both of the foreign powers were successful, and though they were not as independent as before, their situations had certainly improved.

The ACSU, still paranoid about the possibility of either SEATO or the PAC starting another war, tried to rebuild an alliance out of the former CoN states with Latin America and India, but never created any formal organization for that purpose. The program of internal improvements spurred great economic growth within the ACSU, however, and most Africans in the alliance were content with what they had, but fearful they might lose it. The region’s space program continued its expansion, rebuilding much of the infrastructure destroyed by the war, and worked in conjunction with India and anti-PAC Latin America for that purpose.

[Space and Technology]

The PAC seemed determined to keep its control of space, and formally announced their lunar claim as a joint territory of the alliance. Small numbers even settled there permanently as the moon continued its integration with the orbital factories as a vital asset of the PAC defense program.

The PAC and SEATO also launched expeditions of scientific vessels towards the asteroid belts in 2085 and 2087, respectively, and the PAC announced its intention to land a man on Mars before 2100. The new EP President, elected in 2088, also stated his intention to make forays to Jupiter.

SEATO responded with its own plans for space exploration and defensive projects, and formalized its own lunar claims in 2086.

Meanwhile, several AIs in the Pan-American Combine and SEATO announced, in a joint declaration in 2088, that they would like to become formal citizens of their respective nations. The world was shocked, and the case immediately went to the Supreme Court of the United States. Although they wished for rights as sentient beings, the AIs all made it clear that they would not, under any circumstances, resort to violent means to meet their requests, declaring them to be ‘counterproductive to the technological advance of civilization’. With the increasing presence of smaller-scale AIs in civil society, however, a great debate among the developed nations began. Academia was pleased that average people were considering philosophy and political theory in a sensible manner, but the outcome of the decisions seemed uncertain. For what determined the boundary between sentience and automated programming? The defense industry jokingly wondered if they would have to grant their AI equipped armaments voting rights, but the area of primary concern were the supercomputers that possessed true personalities and human-like ‘minds’, that could adapt and self-program.

Constantinople

February 20th, 2007, 05:27 PM

AI as citizens eh? About Mars, when did the first people land on Mars?
Has Germany reformed yet?
Good update though!

Blochead

February 20th, 2007, 05:35 PM

AI as citizens eh? About Mars, when did the first people land on Mars?
Has Germany reformed yet?
Good update though!

Nobody's landed on Mars yet... PAC intends to be the first to.

Germany is still the most devastated of the former USE nations, but it is slowly recovering due to investment by ETO and Mediterranean Zone nations.

David bar Elias

February 20th, 2007, 05:53 PM

Facinating.

And scary, since the potential for yet another devastating conflict is being set up.

Keep up the great work! :cool:

Blochead

February 20th, 2007, 06:04 PM

Facinating.

And scary, since the potential for yet another devastating conflict is being set up.

Keep up the great work! :cool:

There's certainly paranoia, but any conflict between great powers will be fought through economic competition and policy rather than warfare...

The main reasons the military bases are being set up is to 'secure' areas from violent nationalists and stabilize the regions enough to encourage investment. And even then, a lot of that conflict will be run by contracted mercenaries and special forces, rather than regular troops.

And thank you for the comments, of course.

Constantinople

February 20th, 2007, 06:14 PM

Im surprized that no one has landed on Mars yet. Are there any plans for continued Lunar colonization.
To me it looks like the PAC and ETO are roughly on par. Even though on Earth the ETO is very dominate, they have many powerful 'enemies' like the PAC and Brazil and to a lesser extent NEI. Also the PAC dominance in space seems to be very important. Is this all true?

Also how is NEI doing? Have they been able to recover fully? Are there plans to extend it westward?

David bar Elias

February 20th, 2007, 06:24 PM

There's certainly paranoia, but any conflict between great powers will be fought through economic competition and policy rather than warfare...

The main reasons the military bases are being set up is to 'secure' areas from violent nationalists and stabilize the regions enough to encourage investment. And even then, a lot of that conflict will be run by contracted mercenaries and special forces, rather than regular troops.

And thank you for the comments, of course.

You're welcome....:cool:

By 'potential' I meant far into the future (in space, likely).

I see where you're going. It'll likely hasten the world recovery.

How's former Mexico doing? Are there a lot of territories and commonwealths left by 2090?

Blochead

February 20th, 2007, 06:37 PM

Ah, space... Well, that will be a little different. I'm going to try and take the space part in a different direction than in other TLs.

As for Mexico, besides the US states there's the Commonwealth of Southern Mexico and the Commonwealth of Chiapas, which enjoys a much looser relationship with the US, more akin to a protectorate than a Commonwealth the way Puerto Rico was.

David bar Elias

February 20th, 2007, 06:40 PM

nemo1986

February 20th, 2007, 07:38 PM

looks like a possible war between PAC and ETO not to far in the future. Great section though now please work on FAW.

Constantinople

February 22nd, 2007, 07:26 AM

Hmm, because with all these space elevators, it would be much "easier" to send many many people up there....

Constantinople

February 24th, 2007, 06:24 AM

You have talked of the successes of Africa and South Africa specifically.
ACSU is still a collection of states correct, but led by South Africa?
Also, what is South Africa like? Are the boers still a significant minority?

Constantinople

March 13th, 2007, 03:06 AM

Bumpers!!!!

Douglas

March 13th, 2007, 10:15 AM

Bumpers!!!!

Where? Stop this madness! :p

Superdude

March 13th, 2007, 10:28 AM

Yo Blocs, dis ting getting finished or what?

Constantinople

March 26th, 2007, 03:55 AM

I must ask: What are the Falklands like at this point? Recently some mineral wealth was found there, so maybe its a real nice place by 2100.

Blochead

May 20th, 2007, 01:36 AM

Lots of questions...

The ACSU is still basically an alliance lead by South Africa... The Boer population is smaller now, though the non-Boer whites and Asian immigrants have grown in size fairly significantly.

The Falklands are basically a large military base maintained by the Brits and a PAC lease. During the war it got pretty heavily pounded since a lot of defense infrastructure was built during the leadup. They remain an important outpost in the post-war world.

Also, while I don't have any chronologically new material, I did find a two-part vignette that somehow didn't make its way into the timeline...

Southern Venezuela, 2070
One day four hours until Reload

They say that in the worst kinds of quiet, when the only sounds were miles away, you could hear the high-pitched sound of the nanites buzzing in your bloodstream and CNS.

It was more likely that I had a case of tinnitus, despite the carbon-composite shell wrapped around me. Having a few tons of steel and ceramic magnetically catapulted to Earth a few miles away every few hours could do that to you.

I didn’t sleep much anymore. And with the cocktail of nanotech and combat drugs they issued us, did you really need to? It made you tense as hell though. Even if your body seemed sluggish, your mind was charged up and waiting to explode. My fingers had been tapping to some old ‘50s dancebeat on my rifle’s stock while the minutes went by.

There were two companies of us here in what used to be a Venezuelan suburb, but I felt like the only one. Communications silence was essential, and none of us were in each other’s LOS so even tightbeam laser was forbidden.

But there were many of the Connies. Those suckers thought they’d cleared us out with the EMP bombs and arty and were going to push while they knew the lunar railgun was waiting for an ammo shipment from good old Terra Firma. Not on our watch.

I zoomed my suit’s camera eyes in a bit more, looking for insignia under the Community of Nations emblem. Brazilians. So these guys were more likely to be fresh, but green too. They were probably more shaken up than we were. Their formation was sloppy, and from what his sensors told him, the Pantera MBT had its systems frazzled from the Brazilian’s own EMP blasts.

The guy with the HyVeloc launcher was supposed to make the first call. He was probably waiting to get the tank so it’d roadblock the rest of the column. The huge jungle-painted beast stopped just before an intersection as the Brazilian soldiers fanned out to check the area. None of them seemed to notice the PAC soldiers in the buildings overlooking the plaza.

It was very surreal to watch them search, though. They had semi-adaptive camo that, no matter how much you saw it, was too alien in its chameleon-like patterns. Wading among the remains of what had once been a vibrant plaza, their equipment-laden jog contrasted with my mental image of what this had once been, a place to relax and stroll, not too much different from any other suburban community in the developed world.

The bang-shriek of the HyVeloc launcher slammed me back into the present. The nanotech-refined ceramic coated DU slug moved too fast to register with the human eye, all I saw was molten metal and smoke erupting from the vehicle as the Brazilian crew struggled to get out.

I didn’t have time to watch the gruesome spectacle. A chorus of gunfire marked the true beginning of the ambush, and I joined in. My coil-rifle spat a precise burst of three rounds at 2000 RPM and the nano-enhancement on my CNS kept it steady. After a few more bursts, I ran through the derelict flat to find a new position. The blast of a thermobaric grenade from my old perch told me I’d made the right decision.

The radio calls were getting more frantic as iron cloudbursts filled the sky. Artillery. I think it was ours because if the ‘smart shells’ are really as intelligent s they say, there were too many Brazilians writhing in the streets for the barrage to be theirs.

I squeezed off a few more shots and was rewarded with a heavy machine gun tearing through the apartment like tissue paper. Time to move again.

This time I didn’t outrun the thermobaric. As I cleared the door to the hall, the blast on the floor below me sucked the oxygen out of the room (thank LockMart for the M606’s NBC capability) and sent me tumbling through the hole it’d created. Drywall and various other construction material showered down through the gap, and after a brief moment I got up and started looking for a way out. Too many Brazilians out on the streets; the backyard was not looking any better.

There were tunnels through these towns when we’d been clearing the Community out the first time, in case we’d decided to nuke the place and people needed to stay underground. They were good enough for roving guerillas too. I ran through down to the stairwell and listened for a bit. The radio chatter wasn’t sounding good. Most of my company was nonfunc or dead. Kicking open the basement door, I saw that I wouldn’t need any tunnels: there was a reinforced hatch and an old service elevator.

I almost didn’t notice the thermobaric that clattered just a few yards away.

****.

Six hours until Reload

I don’t know what woke me. Maybe the click-click-click of the Geiger counter, because there was nothing else to hear.

I rolled over and groaned. But the pain was distant. The suit’s medical system had pumped me full of painkillers and nanites to keep me going. I checked the clock… I’d been out for more than a day. Thank god thermobarics were pressure weapons and not armor-crackers, or I’d be a dead man by now.
But why was that damn Geiger counter going off? I checked the levels on my retinal projection… Low. Very low. Good basement this was, and good armor I was wearing. Then again, neutron bombs these days were designed to be short effect weapons so you could march in earlier and retake the territory. I got up, sat around for an hour while I reorganized myself. I scanned the frequencies, static and the occasional high-power transmission from miles away. Then I amped up the acoustic sensor. Nothing human moving in the immediate area. Exhaling sharply into my respirator, I crawled out of the wreckage of the apartment building and surveyed the streets. Everything was dead. The bodies from the previous day littered the ground, and around them were the carcasses of the scavengers caught in the blast. A Pantera hull smoldered quietly, the ghostlike wisps were the only things moving among the gray, battered cityscape.

The blasts couldn’t have been direct though. I looked towards Santa Elena de Uarien. That was where it was focused around, near the main highways. If there were any survivors… Well, PAC survivors anyway.

I scanned freqs again. No point in drawing more attention to myself than necessary by transmitting. Protocol meant nobody was going to answer.

I checked my rifle to make sure the thing still worked, and then set about gathering ammunition and any equipment I’d missed in the firefight. No point in grabbing extra food, it might be contaminated. I did grab the other guys’ tablets of purification chemicals and medical supplies.

The GPS satellite feed was working, which was good. At least I could know where I was going. I needed something more concrete though.

Climbing carefully back up one of the apartments in the ruined block, I looked towards the main city. Smoke streamed out, and in the afternoon dusk, no electric lights showed. Not even the occasional explosion or a squirt of tracers.

I’d never felt more alone in my life. My goal was to be anywhere closer to Santa Elena but here by sometime tonight. I don’t aim high. No point when the Community lobs nukes whenever the Pan American Combine gets too deep into their turf for comfort.

Amazingly, the audio files I’d put on the ‘personal allocation’ of the suit mainframe drive were still working. Well, maybe not amazingly. The computer was made so that it’d only be taken out if I was.

So I walked through a dead city listening to ‘40s Electric Western, all drums and buzzing, reverb-packed guitar. If it was a movie, my musical choice was probably horrible in taste.

After two hours of walking, my suit alerted me to something. I cut the music and ducked to cover in an alleyway, readying my rifle.

I poked it around the corner, zooming in on the figure. Definitely Community manufacture PA, the exact country, I dunno. But the way he walked, he looked alone. And it didn’t look like he knew I was there. Probably just another poor ******* trying to get to friendly territory. He’d been going the opposite direction of me, away from the PAC advance. And there was probably a Brazilian counter-attack on the way that would scoop him up.

He was wounded too, scavenging through the cars pushed to the sides of the street for something, maybe shelter or supplies. He was obviously desperate, and from the look of his tired figure, he didn't have too much. I don’t know why, but I switched on the suit’s amplifier and yelled “Hola!” He swung around, jittery but with a quick draw, whipping his rifle around. He paused for a second, yelling what I think was “Who is it?” or the like in Portuguese or Spanish. I honestly didn’t take time to translate.

Bad choice. As impulsively as I’d called for the man, I’d shot him. Four rounds enveloped him in a cloud of dust and dark mist in the middle of the street, some part of him or his equipment clattering against an abandoned car.

His words and my gunshots rolled through the dead city, echoed, and faded away. Creeping over carefully, I snatched up his dried MRE packets and kept going. Didn’t see any need to do otherwise. You just walked away. Eventually the blood would dry and cake with dust, and he’d just be one more byproduct of human conflict left to waste in the grand chaos of war. I’d killed plenty like him. Just because it was just us two didn’t make it any different, I supposed.

And I had to get moving. I was already imagining I could feel the hum and vibration of Brazilian and Argentine divisions rolling up to meet my weakened allies. Maybe I was going nuts, but if you'd been around on the Darien Gap and the Andean campaign as long as I had, you'd know when the CoN likes to attack.

The sky was started to clear up a bit but it was dulled by the near permanent veil of smoke that spewed from the urban battlefield. Gradually as the night war on, sound returned. Hypersonic aircraft racing to meet the oncoming forces and missiles from both sides raced far above my head. I started walking a little faster. They were just the opening salvos against a Community counter-attack that couldn’t be any more than half a day away now.

Constantinople

May 24th, 2007, 06:43 AM

Constantinople

June 30th, 2007, 12:46 AM

Bump! Will this continue to be continued?

Constantinople

August 1st, 2007, 01:12 AM

Ever ever?
What happens to space?
What happenes to Germany?

Fuzzy

August 2nd, 2007, 04:15 AM

Very good TL, just finished it. Two questions; whats the population of the Earth at this point, and how many people died in WW4?

Constantinople

August 2nd, 2007, 08:41 AM

Stupid edit time limiter....

Does Australia still maintain connections to the ANG/PAC? Or is it all the way in the Seato camp?
Will Europe begin to take an important role again in the future?
(What did its population end up being pre-war, you said that the population crash was not nearly as bad as projected, and that there was a native 'baby boom'. What percentage is muslim?)
Hope you come back soon.

Blochead

August 27th, 2007, 03:36 AM

Yaaay! A semi update! Information about africa in general is always welcome.
So, what about this springtime of nations thing you mentioned?
Im always happy to see European states jumpstarted again, with their shiney new infastructure.

Yeah... That update is getting sort of delayed due to college applications and my new super-secret AH/FH timeline. As a hint though, some interesting things are going to happen in the US domestically... While the rest of the world is reviving, the US will be dealing with transitioning away from its wartime system of government.

Ever ever?
What happens to space?
What happenes to Germany?

What's likely going to happen to space is that Asia and the Americas will basically have a new space race, both are gearing up but are waiting until they have to devote less of their budget to other tasks. There will be a large private presence in space as well.

Germany is basically a ward of foreign nations. Lots of Asian money floating around, and some fear that SEATO will rope them into a proposed bloc of SEATO dependent nations.

Very good TL, just finished it. Two questions; whats the population of the Earth at this point, and how many people died in WW4?

The population of Earth at this point is probably hovering a bit over 8 billion. Big birthrate slowdowns in the developed world + massive war... Whose direct deathtoll (post-war deaths due to lack of infrastructure) is probably at least 500 million altogether.

Stupid edit time limiter....

Does Australia still maintain connections to the ANG/PAC? Or is it all the way in the Seato camp?

Economically Australia is heavily in the SEATO camp, but it still maintains lots of trade links with the PAC and English speaking nations. The Asian population in Australia is much higher, but there are fears that a cold war of sorts could end up brewing between PAC and SEATO, which Australia desperately wants to avoid.

Will Europe begin to take an important role again in the future?

Yes, the nations at the fringes first and moving inward, as Central Europe was the most devastated. Poland and Germany especially are held together by foreign aid.

(What did its population end up being pre-war, you said that the population crash was not nearly as bad as projected, and that there was a native 'baby boom'. What percentage is muslim?)
Hope you come back soon.

Prewar population was probably a little over 9 billion. Europe had a baby boom, yes, and the Muslim population prewar is probably similar to what it is today prewar (maybe even lower, due to the USE's antagonism with the Middle East), but probably several times higher in Southern Europe postwar and virtually nonexistent in central Europe.

Shimmergloom

September 4th, 2007, 01:35 AM

Just caught up with the thread. I hope you update more. I have a few questions.

1. How close is the US or PaC toward having formal terrirtories or states made out of areas of the moon? Are any of the space stations large enough to be considered territories or are they all just run by the military?

2. About the AI. Are they all just in supercomputers that are kept stationary, or are there any android like AI in existence yet?

3. How many states are there in the US in 2090?

4. When did NATO fall apart? And is there a US/British pact or treaty? I'm trying to understand why it seemed that the US had been letting the British be hung out to dry in WWIV. I'd think that in just 70 years the US wouldn't be letting SEATO bully Britain around like that postwar.

5. When do we make First Contact? :D

HurganPL

September 4th, 2007, 01:42 AM

5. When do we make First Contact? :D
Or perhaps we did already by orbital telescopes ?
What is the status of astronomy ? Are there any Earth-like planets images available ? Bio-signatures detected in alien atmospheres or signs of mega-engineering ?

Shimmergloom

September 4th, 2007, 04:02 AM

So much sci fi has united earths in the future, that I think it would be interesting to see a non-united earth exploring and colonizing space and dealing with alien cultures.

I'd imagine in the timeline of this thread, whoever makes first contact first, has a huge advantage vs the other factions. Assuming the aliens would want to establish new trade routes and treaties instead of just conquest of the earth.

JP_Morgan

September 5th, 2007, 04:38 AM

Great story. But from reading Blochead's new TL, i guess it'l be a while before he does another update on this one.:(

Joke Insurance

September 15th, 2007, 08:43 PM

Man.....this thread really went into a deep tangent, lol.

Atreus

September 15th, 2007, 11:33 PM

I thought the final war was great. So good to see this thread back. Need updates, Blochead.

Blochead

September 16th, 2007, 02:19 AM

Thanks for the support everyone. Unfortunately, I don't have a full update ready but here are a few trends I wanted to highlight... Though I will say the next update will really bring space into the focus of the TL.
[Post-War Trends]

[Monetary Unification and Privatization]
This was not a phenomenon unique to the post-war era, but after the Final War, national currencies were almost meaningless. For all the framing of the Final War as a struggle between nationalists and unificationists, money literally told a different story. Although the fervent patriotism of Americans was one of the defining features of the war, the American dollar itself had regained its status as a truly international currency. Most of the other nations of the PAC and its associates had adopted it in all but name. The Eastern Standard Yuan was the currency of choice from Berlin to Beijing, while the African Rand was the dominant currency south of the equator on the continent.

Despite this trend, private currencies were gaining increasing popularity. The resurgence in trans-bloc electronic commerce had brought with it the use of net currencies as stores of value. The chaotic nature of the post-war years had also brought about MNC and bank backed private currencies, effectively neutral and in many cases secured against inflation, especially in the case of commodity-backed currencies. The more financially astute citizens of frontline nations exchanged what they feared would be worthless fiat currencies for these funds, though this eventually became a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the eve of major offensives, in some frontline countries the fiat currency often collapsed completely due to fears for the longevity of its use.

[The future of ETO]

The Eastern Trade Organization faced an internal debate on its role in the world stage. The core members were focused on power projection and economic expansion, along with the new members in Central Asia. However, peripheral states such as the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand worried that economic-bloc competition between the ETO and the PAC could result in major economic and political damage for their economies, which still had significant commercial and cultural ties to the West. These nations adamantly opposed a more unified ETO foreign policy or anything they thought might lead to a cold war with another economic bloc. In addition, the action in Scotland had alienated the two English-speaking members who now worried their national resources and militaries might be called to roll back any PAC expansion in Europe or elsewhere. Though PAC and ETO were not hostile, there was much speculation the changing balance of power could lead to conflict.