1. Days of Fire
Days of Fire [2025-2090]
Introduction
The aptly called Days of Fire was a period of utter devastation and chaos (political, economic and military) that resulted from the sudden and unexpected collapse of the post-Cold War political equilibrium. A single disaster of previously unimagineable scale triggered a chain reaction causing more and more disasters, this malevolent chain lasting until none of the great powers of old remained standing.
Few periods of human history could match the Days of Fire in the sheer scale of catastrophes befelling the Mankind. Yet, despite all of that, humanity persevered. In the following decades an centuries it become apparent that Days of Fire toughened Mankind. New political structures and systems rose from the ashes left by the Days of Fire, raising a magnificent structure that remained strong for centuries.
Events
Yellowstone Caldera Erupts
16th October 2025, Central United States
Yellowstone supervolcano was a part of many doomsday prophecies and prediction for many years. However majority of scientists estimated that the chance of it occuring within the next few million years was abysmal. Nature decided to prove Mankind wrong, even if only to a degree. During early October, the seismic activity surrounding the Yellowstone supervolcano suddenly spiked.
In the end it was only the caldera - one of the few major magma chambers of Yellowstone - suddenly exploded that day. The advance warning of about thirty-six hours wasn't enough. Thirty-six days might not be enough. States of Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, significant part of Colorado, south-eastern Montana, south North Dakota and west Iowa were simply annihilated, ash choking out all life from them and killing everyone that failed to escape in time.
Rest of North Dakota, Montana and Iowa, together with Minnesota, eastern Idaho, Utah, north-eastern Arizona, north New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, western Illinois, and western Wisconsin were decimated - tens of millions of people survived the eruption and fled, starting a refugee crisis of biblical proportion.
The rest of Wisconsin and Illinois, together with Indiana, western Michigan, western Kentucky, north Texas and western Tennesee were temporarily covered in ash, but were restored later on. The remaining states were decimated not by blast itself, but by millions of displaced refugees, volcanic winter-induced famine and the economic disaster that the eruption was.
As the country began collapsing under the strain, military seized control over majority of the Eastern Coast (and surviving edge of the Midwest) establishing emergency government that ended up remaining in power for decades. Another competitor arose from the surviving parts of the Western Coast. Texas refused to follow either side and seceeded. Alaska and Hawaii islands ended up doing the same. Canada's ability to control western half of their territory waned to the point where the entire country remained in a state of perpetual crisis for decades to come. Cuba seized Puerto Rico, to add insult to injury.
The American Empire and its Pax Americana collapsed almost overnight. The massive economic upheaval caused by the sudden disappearance of sizeable portion of North American market culminated in worldwide recession as the other markets were forced to adjust to the new situation. And if that wasn't enough, many countries that were happy to see american soldiers leave their territory soon began to miss them as wars began to flare around the globe.
East Asian War
2027-2028, Eastern Asia
China had few things to lose and everything to gain in the wake of United States' collapse. With their only serious competitor to the seat of the world's superpower out of the picture, the People's Republic of China could finally move around uncontested. What started as moderately aggresive muscle flexing soon escalated into border clashes and finally open war between the PRC and former allies of now collapsing United States.
The war was waged primarily on two fronts, the northern and southern one. Northern one saw Chinese forces face South Korea, Japan and remnants of American garrisons that went native following the collapse of the United States. Southern one had PRC engage Taiwanese' Republic of China. The serious ground warfare occured mostly in Korea, while Japan and Taiwan and engaged in war mostly on seas and in the air. After few months of struggles it becomes apparent that the PRC will eventually succeed through sheer attrition, resulting in a truce and soon a peace treaty.
The East Asian War ended with China cementing its dominant power over entire East and Southeast Asia, though with no border changes. The Taiwan's years of independence were de facto over, however. It wasn't seized directly only because the worldwide's economic downturn affected the PRC too, its economy in a precarious state of manageable recession. For now, the People's Republic of China was content with establishing its superiority over the western edge of the Pacific Ocean.
The open and symetric warfare was an escalation unheard of during the last decades of political maneuvering and rare asymetric warfare (with the sole exception of Russo-Ukraine). The resulting political crisis was even worsened by the United Nations' lack of political will to seriously condemn Chinese' aggression. With Taiwan issue seen by it officially as 'internal matters of China', the UN ended up being seen by majority of the world as Chinese' puppets.
With NATO in decline and UN losing last remaining shreds of respect, the geopolitical 'rules of engagement' were radically altered. Soon an anti-PRC coalition began to form, with Russian Federation and the Republic of India forming its core. Soon, however, European Union and numerous secondary powers began aligning themselves with that coalition out of fear towards China's expansionism.
China responded with lack of further expansionism, deciding to wait until inevitable small rivalries and dislikes will break the opposing coalition. This plan succeeded, though not exactly as they imagined it to happen.
Second Iran-Iraqi War
2028-2029, Middle East
With the United States out of the picture, Iran decided to quell long-standing internal dissent with some conquests and military victories. The Iraq become its first target, primarily due to its weakness - after local forces of the United States and its allies pulled out, and the America disappeared from the radar, the country was in the state closely resembling a civil war. What's more, many Iranian officers and politicans wanted a rematch after the status quo ante bellum result of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraqi War.
The war was over in a flash, with the Iran army seizing Bagdad within four months after the declaration of war. Suppression of various militias roaming the countryside was going to take many years, however. What's more, this conquest was a spark falling on the powderkeg known as Middle East. Within the next half year Saudi Arabia openly annexes (or 'guarantees independence') of Yemen, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Turkey attempts to expand southward, starting an open war with Syria, whose regime is still weakened by the devastating civil war that never really ended.
The remaining power of the Levant attempt desperately to arm themselves and look as threateningly as possible, hoping the storms to pass by. The entire Middle East region is slowly preparing itself for a major confrontation between major powers of the region (primarily Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia, though Israel is counted amongst them too, in a way). For now, it's the smaller buffer states that face the troubles.
With the Middle East region burning, the global economy receives another hit which intensifies the ongoing recession. Fuel shortages (or risk of them) happen in numerous countries. This impairs both the industrial output and the popular' faith in the stability of the financial situation, meaning a massive drop in investments necessary to keep many companies afloat. And as the global stability worsens, radicals suddenly find themselves in position to seize the control over national governments or at least influence their politics.
Phlegreian Fields Erupt
13th June 2030, Italy
Following a brief period of unusual activity - believed by most scientists to be aftershocks caused by the Yellowstone disaster - the Phlegreian Fields supervolcano suddenly erupts. For a supervolcano it wasn't a large eruption, it was in fact smaller than the Yellowstone despite no attempts to defuse the bomb. However it was still a titanic blast, one that spelled disaster for Europe and North Africa, and end of the world for Italy.
The eruption wiped out Naples and everything in the vicinity, and covered a significant part of Italy (and western Greece) in ash. The Italy failed to survive that. The remaining parts of the Italy collapse into a number of regional governments, each of them desperately trying to stave off encroaching famine and economic disaster of unimagineable magnitude.
The rest of Europe fares only marginally better. Three years long volcanic winter decimates agriculture, reminding europeans what true famine looks like. The effects are worsened by the fact that the worldwide economic chaos makes it increasingly harder to import massive ammounts of food needed to feed the european population. Naturally, with the European Union in such state, the economic downturn and global recession only worsens.
European Union attempts to counter the disaster by increasingly centralized measures. Relentless power grab is successfully explained to majority of european population as the necessity of the moment, however the radicalization of anti-EU elements follows suit. The degree of success varies, however. By year 2035 France, Germany, Low Countries and entirety of Scandinavia are mostly EU-compliant. Eastern members (Baltic States, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and so on) are much less impressed.
Second Spanish Civil War
2031-2034, Spain
The economic impact of the Phlegreian Fields eruption sunk the already struggling economies of the Mediterrenean, hitting Greece and Spain the most after the now-dead Italy. The Spain was the first to fall. The collapsing government essentially had to pillage the slightly better faring regions in order to keep the less fortunate parts of Spain afloat. This caused catastrophic rise in dissent that resulted in the open attempts to seceed.
With the talks of new Catalonian independence referendum floating around, and the polls showing the widespread support for the secession, the government reacts with panic. A state of emergency is declared, and military action attempted to reinforce its rule over the disgruntled provinces. The armed opposition from the provinces and mass desertions of the soldiers sparked a civil war that lasted for three years and was simply too much for the country to handle. Even before the Phlegreian Fields such a war would drain life from the country. In its aftermath it was a disaster.
As a result of the war, Kingdom of Spain ceased to exist as a political entity. Catalona and Basque Country succeeded in seceeding, but it was a pyrrhic victory on their side, as the war ruined them more than the government's policies ever could. Large parts of the Spain were decimated to the point of partially returning to a pre-industrial level of development. Millions of people die (most of them not because of fighting, but because of economic collapse and famine).
European Union failed to respond adequately to the crisis. Spain could barely contribute anything to the Union, and in the state of the civil war all attempts to aid it (save for some unsuccessful mediation attempts) would be tantamount to throwing money into the bottomless swamp. With the war finally burning out, the EU moved in. The result was a partial ressurection of Spain as a much more centralized and increasingly left-wing republic. It was, however, lagging behind the Europe and was geopolitically irrelevant.
Ashen Flu Pandemic
2032, Earth
The first of the great pandemics of the Days of Fire strikes the world. Ashen Flu was little more but one more highly contagious flu pandemics, however the fact that it struck the world weakened by famine and poverty balooned the death toll beyond the imagination. Ashen Flu caused relatively negligible casualties in South America, Asia and Africa, but from Europe, North Africa, and North America, it was a disaster.
By the end of 2032, 52 millions people are dead as countries fail to adequately respond to the pandemic. 19 million die in the former United States, 12 millions in Europe, 5 millions in Canada and Mexico, and 6 millions in North Africa. What's more, the drastic measures used to finally suppress and quarantine the plague heighten tensions in the afflicted areas, further worsening their internal situation.
European Union' countries reaction was mixed. The biggest problem of the EU was that it's response was too medium. It was draconic enough to infuriate a large portion of the population, but still not draconic enough to suppress the plague quickly and thoroughly enough for the population to uniformly decide that these methods were justified. Worse, the EU's idea to focus its efforts on the more compliant countries sparked massive political backlash that greatly contributed to the political instability plaguing the European Union.
Kashmir War
2032-2035, South Asia
Years of tension finally erupt due to combination of the worldwide political instability and intersecting political interests. Especially the latter contributed greatly, as with China supporting Pakistan and Russia supporting India the entire conflict bordered on being a proxy war between a superpower and its last standing military competitor.
The war lasts for three years. India seems to be coming on top, and is capable of keep Pakistan forces at bay successfully. Unfortunately, due to a series of concidences, accidents and wrong decisions the war finally erupts into a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Limited exchange [with 'only' eight bombs falling], however the result is still disastrous.
Death toll is in high millions, nuclear fallout plagues the region for decades, and the world is shocked. The combat usage of nuclear weapons was something that Mankind as a whole delegated into the realm of nightmares and dystopian fiction. The fact that it actually happened managed to scare Mankind more than all previous disasters combined. Resulting in growth of the number of doomsayers. Naturally the sudden growth of worldwide pessimism didn't help the already ailing markets.
An additional result was the fact that India ceased being an emerging power, its ability to keep China in check highly diminishing. Soon China began to probe the Indiochina Peninsula and exterting political pressure on local governments. The process of vassalizing these countries was put to halt by the events of 2036.
Greek Civil War
2032-2033, Balkan Peninsula
Greece died the moment the Phlegreian Fields erupted. From then on it's collapse was a conclusion set in stone. If anything, it was a great success that the country managed to retain some semblances of existence until the year 2032, despite the crippling economic crisis and total collapse of tourism industry. In the end, however, it was simply unsustainable.
The war started due to a failed military coup which devolved into a civil war, quickly joined by numerous militias fielded by almost every group from every part of the political spectrum. The result was a bloody chaos that lasted for less than a year, mostly because by that time only a single remaining group was still capable of fielding something resembling a military force.
The ultimate victors of the war were radical left-wing militia known as Laiko Dimokratiko Kinima [LDK, People's Democratic Movement], which succeeded mostly due to being financed and supported by the European Union. Union's leadership feared the further raise of right-wing radicalism while simultaneously attempting to defend its economic and financial interests.
The Union's success was shortlived. The LDK proclaimed the creation of Socialist Republic of Greece - a country that inherited neither debt nor treaties of the old Greece. This movement was a calculated risk, with LDK's leadership deciding that neither ailing European Union nor the Turkey (now engaged in Middle-Eastern War) will be capable of attacking Greece in near future. This meant that Greece left the EU, and refused to pay back any of its debts.
The calculations of the new Greek governments were spot on, as the disastrous 'Greek adventure' of the European Union greatly contributed to the Union's ultimate collapse.
Middle-Eastern War
2032-2039, Middle East
The tensions in the Middle East finally erupt. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey engage each other in a melee-a-trois for the position of the dominant power of the region. The war was a years long stalemate, during which all three sides relentlessly threw soldiers and equipment into the grinder. A war full of skirmishes and battles that, in the end, changed nothing.
The war esulted in negligible territorial changes, but massive weakening of all participants. Turkey spends years in great political turmoils due to wartime casualties, and Saudi Arabia's grip on their recently annexed or vassalized territories crumbles. Iran loses the least, but is still massively weakened despite being the nominal victor of the war.
In the end, the true winner of the war is Israel, which retains its power in the Middle East currently devoid of powerful enemies. Before the war ends Lebanon and Jordan are de facto Israeli's vassals. After brief (merely two months long) Sinai War, Israel seizes entire Sinai Peninsula from the weakened and half-collapsed Egypt. Sinai becomes a target of large-scale colonization efforts, with Israel finally having a place to settle Jews that decided to abandon other countries (especially remnants of the United States and now decimated Europe) in favour of Israel.
For the time being, Israel achieves almost hegemonic position over the Levant. This lasts until the Second Middle-Eastern War rearranges the whole region once again.
European War
2034-2039, Europe
The European Union's downfall was caused by a number of factors. Increasingly authoritarian measures which began infuriating even some of its supporters. Draining recovery efforts in Spain and disastrous Greek adventure. Drastic push of radically left-wing ideology, which only seemed to enflame internal turmoil and arm the political radicals of the other end of spectrum in arguments. Final spark were gossips of another horrible harvest and expected famine in the 2034/2035 winter, which triggered a number of violent riots throughout Europe.
The attempt to squash the dissent with force resulted in violent riots evolving into violent revolutions and counterrevolutions. Within less than one year the European Union's forces stopped being a cohesive group and dissolved into a number of militias facing the revolutionaries on at best equal ground. The resulting war was a horror that came to a continent that already forgot about the existence of such horrors.
Ethnic cleansings, political purges, economic collapse, genocides and general lack of common decency raged through Europe unchecked. Europe self-demoted itself from struggling first world into the third world within first three years of the war. The rest was just a pure an unadulterated horror. By the end of the war, the population of the former EU countries decreased from around 420 million to 375. Countries such as Great Britain are decimated purely as a collateral damage.
Germany and France end up being seized by a totalitarian neofascists movements headed by Karl Hauser and Eugene Delacroix, whose names soon become more feared and hated than that of Adolf Hitler's. The purges (or 'just' exile) of varios enemies of the state continue on until at least 2045. Rest of the Europe fares little better.
Great Britain collapses due to economic disaster accompanying the war on the continent. The result is the creation of the United Republic of Britain which soon descended into totalitarian form of socialism. Norway and Sweden end up as radical socialist states, being more authoritarian than many dictatorships despite being democratic countries. Denmark is torn between its neighbours. Italy is even more dead as it was, and Republic of Spain is an even worse ruined wreck, though it more or less survives. All of mentioned countries doubles down on their internal enemies, only slightly less radically than Germany and France does.
Russian Federation openly seizes Belarus and the Baltic States, with minimum resistance, establishing a buffer zone between it and the bloody mess that the Europe chaned into. Remaining Central-Eastern Europe is a mix of struggling republics or relatively benign authoritarian 'emergency governments' that mostly turn back into republics after a decade or two.
Red Death Pandemic
2036, Worldwide
The government of the Russian Federation was pushed into the corner by the collapse of its last potential ally and the recurring border skirmishes on the Russia-Chinese border. Never being very much into ethics, they finally decided to employ a rather terrible solution to the problem. One that succeeds much more than Federation's governments expected.
Red Death was a virus created by the Russian Federation's scientists as a bioweapon. A heavily modified ebola virus, with its resistance to environmental dangers boosted by scientific tinkering, was introduced into the Chinese population in several major cities at once. It was also the first (and the last) ethnic bioweapon, the virus explicitly modified to target only people carrying a number of genetic markers typically associated with people of Chinese descent.
Russians expected the virus to be a distraction. Unfortunately, the virus mutated and within a month from initial outbreak went airborne. The result was 78 millions of victims during the first outbreak alone. The virus resurged four times during the next decade, with its final death toll approaching 240 millions (including 23 millions of Chinese living outside of China and people with a misfortune of having a Chinese person in their family tree).
The 'Pax Sinica' in the East Asia fell by the end of the first outbreak, previously vassalized countries retaking their independence. The Chinese economy fell by the end of the second outbreak (2039), causing mass scale famine that killed further millions. The People's Republic of China finally collapsed during the third outbreak (2042). The fourth one (2047]had no other result save for millions of dead people.
As the result of the China's collapse, Tibet and Sinciang go independent. Mongolia swallows and recolonizes the Outer Mongolia after the surviving Chinese settlers (decimated by the plague scouring the area) are forced to leave. Slightly less decimated Taiwan takes over the position of officially recognized Chinese state, but lacks of ability to expand onto the continental China. This changes when what's left of Hong Kong decides to ally with it, if only to avoid getting ransacked by warlords tearing the China's mainland apart. The result is a slowly growing continental domain of the Republic of China, one of the two relatively stable parts of China. The other one is the Henan Government, mostly due to said government being pretty much controlled by local Christians and Buddhists, giving them a certain level of uniqueness and internal support.
Green Crash
2040, Worldwide
The worldwide economy system was on the verge of collapse ever since the Yellowstone eruption. It was never created with weathering storms of this magnitude in mind. Recurrent disasters, disappearance of entire markets, and general pessimism caused fifteen years long recession that seemed unstoppable. This was counted among many reasons for sudden increased in intensity of various previously fringe beliefs, such as communism and fascism. The number of doomsayers predicting the end of capitalism grew exponentially for years.
What finally broke the economy was the collapse of the People's Republic of China. Red Death merely sped up the inevitable, as without the First World to supply with cheap goods the economies of Asia and Africa were already ailing and on the very verge of collapse. The collapse of China's economy was the last nail in the coffin. With global trade in tatters, main consumers out of the picture and the producers failing to sell anything they produce, the resulting was crash was a disaster worse than the 1929's.
It was a blessing in a disguise, however. Previous economic system was a balast, its remains (both literal and psychological ones) acting as chains stopping the changes from occuring. The Green Crash, however terrible, was a shock therapy. The process of economic paradigm shift was already underway for close to a decade, and what the Green Crash did was clearing out the companies that failed to adjust to it from the market. Corporations following the outdated economic models collapsed or in rare cases merged and restructured, taking over the now much smaller market. Those who already followed the model that was to become dominant in post-Green Crash world suddenly expanded thanks to the breathing space they got.
The end of 'sweatshop economy' allowed the East and South to start growing as actual competitors to the North and West. Fossil fuels were quickly phased out, replaced by energy gained from fusion and renewable resources. Rapidly growing 3D printing and drone-based logistics replaced old, centralized factories with new, much more decentralized and much more green. The paradigm shift brought new scientific breakthroughs and better usage of the old ones, making green technology a viable and increasingly cost-efficient option. Soon the economic recovery began, though it wasn't going to be instaneous.
Culturcide Ends
2040-2045, Worldwide
The globalization was a seemingly benevolent process that was also an undeniable and unchangeable fact of existence for decades. Those that fought against it were mostly seen as fringe radicals, and even they typically were taking advantage of positive changes brought by it. With the whole world changing into an interconnected village it was impossible to fully separate yourself from it.
Two centuries in the future, the globalization was seen in a much different light. It was the culturcide, the mass extermination and draining of 'lesser' cultures and languages by an overbearing, worldwide 'culture' of globalization. The greatest mass extermination and draining in history, in fact, with only the period of colonialism was anywhere close to it.
Now, however, the culturcide began collapsing. Internet was in tatters, with many regions disappearing from it entirely (continental China, half of Northern America, the totalitarian nightmares of the Western Europe), and numerous autocracies taking advantage of that to severely limit access to whatever was left of the world wide web. What's more the Green Crash sparked the end of the overbearing influence of Western culture of the world (with the only major competitor of China gone as well). And if that wasn't enough, the international trade massively decreased due to the strive for maximum possible self-sufficiency in the post-Green Crash era.
As a result, massive changes to a global culture occured, with the 'popculture' of the past dissolving into a mess of hundreds competing cultures, increased regionalism and enflamed patriotism and nationalism alike. It was also a major factor in an ongoing resurgence of religion in many parts of the world.
Sweating Plague Pandemic
2040, Worldwide
Sweating Plague was a previously unknown bacterial disease that spread like wildfire through the hotter and more humid parts of the world. It claimed approximately ninety million victims in India, Indiochina, Africa and South America. Despite being caused by bacteria, it turned out to be utterly impervious to all types of antibiotics.
This was merely the most striking case of aquired antibiotic resistance. By 2042 the average life expectancy dropped to approximately 55-62 years worldwide through a mass-scale resurgence of diseases previously pushed into the corner by antibiotics. Tuberculosis, black death and cholera reigned supreme, but even leprosy managed to make a come back and start killing people in Europe and North America. It is estimated that the death toll caused by antibiotic resistance between 2030 and 2050 reached two hundred million, with close to half caused by the Sweating Plague.
This process was effectively reversed due to post-Green Crash economic recovery leading to renew investments in biotechnology. By 2060 close to two hundred antibiotics were created, with new ones being made too fast for the bacterias to adapt, effectively ending their reign of terror over Mankind. Forever, as it later turned out.
Second Middle-Eastern War
2042-2051, Middle East
The Green Crash spelled disaster for the world at large... and armageddon for the countries whose economy relied on extraction and export of fossil fuels (especially oil, but coal and natural gas were only marginally less hit). Of course, the whole process of moving to green energy was going to take at least two decades.
WIth process of moving on to solar or energy-powered cars in full swing, and both the general collapse of industrial output of the world and drop in world's population, the demand for fossil fuels was already collapsing. The trend was obvious to everyone. The Green Crash began stalking the world, murdering economy after economy.
Within few months Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE essentially ceased to exist as countries, falling into barbarism and warlordism and with their elites typically fleeing the countries with their wealth. Iran fared slightly better, but the loss of main source of revenue from the conquered Iraq hit it hard. In the end, Iran collapsed as well, but few years in the war. This led to an obvious end of any sort of political stability in the area.
Turkey pushes southward and annexes majority of Syria and Iraq by 2045, achieving substantial victories against collapsing Iran and the Israeli Bloc. It's victory is pyrrhic, as casualties and war exhaustion led to a failed military coup which changed into a Turkish Civil War. The conquered territories are lost, and the Socialist Republic of Greece takes advantage of the chaos to seize the Constantinople and the straits. When collapse of the Turkey becomes apparent, Kurds raise and finally gain uncontested independence. Even Armenia dared to make a number of border corrections. The result is major reaarangement of the entire Middle East.
The United Shia Republic raises in the east, composed of Iran and the Shia parts of Iraq. New Islamic Caliphate is proclaimed and soon seizes Arabian Peninsula and Sunni Iraq. Revanchist and openly authoritarian Turkey remains in the north, contained by the defensive coalition of Armenia, Kurdistan, Syria and Greece, all mutual dislikes between its members squashed by fear of Turkish reconquests. The peace is temporary, as all powers impatiently await the new war to finally emerge as hegemons of the region.
Second Russian Civil War
2042-2051, Russia
Russia was the second major victim of the Green Crash. With its economy collapsing, the government adopted increasingly totalitarian measures in hope of staying afloat. The result was a successful military coup that ended as a spark falling on the powderkeg. Within days dozen radical groups raised their own banners in various parts of the Federation, with the already disgruntled military plagues by desertions.
The Second Civil War was a war of thousand secessionist movements, dozens of armies of various political radicals and the moderates caught in-between. And all of that in a country that possessed a sizeable detachment of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The two former weapons found their use in the conflict, to a genuine terror of the world.
Kremlin is destroyed alongside Central Moscow by a nuclear blast directed by either the muslim extremists or siberian secessionists. Three more blasts and numerous chemical warfare applications are noted throughout the conflict. Russian Federation collapses. Siberia and Far Eastern seceed successfully. Western aquisitions (Belarus, Balic States, Eastern Ukraine) regain independence with some help from the Central European former EU members. Muslims take over majority of the Caucasus and the Central Asia expands politically through several minor yet successful secessions. Kaliningrad becomes an independent republic, theoretically seeing itself as a 'Russian Federation' in exile.
The european part of Russia became the New Soviet Union under control of the 'victorious' neomarxists, an eclectic group that began as an alliance between local eurosocialists, neocommunists and various natonalists that wanted Russia strong, regardless of its political system. This alliance succeeded in defeating the various neofascists, imperialist, democratic and federation loyalists group, but its internal disagreement were going to plague the Soviet Union for many years.
Free City
2042-2045, Faroe Islands
An extraterritorial 'anarchocapitalist utopia' is created on a part of the Faroe Islands leased to a joint initative of a number of megacorporations that survived the Green Crash, in exchange of notable financial support to the region. Something greatly needed, as the Denmark was gone as a country and all the nearest countries were totalitarian regimes.
The resulting 'Free City' is soon seen as a wretched hive of villainy and lack of common decency, with tax evasion being the smallest of legal issues concerning the initative. This leads to few protests being put up when the United Republic of Britain seized the Islands in early 2045, erasing all traces of the 'utopia' from them together with the capitalism.
While a relatively minor incident, this event was going to be much later cited as the first case of corporatocracy and anarchocapitalism in human history. And, at least among the countries of the Liberty Conglomerate, as the prime example of 'collectivists' persecuting freedom wherever they can find it.
European Cold War starts
2045-2046, Europe
The European War ended in 2039, and that's when the political maneuvering started. No war was going to occur any time soon, as the remaining european powers needed many years to lick their wounds. However the factions began emerging much faster, and soon the continent was split between three competing powers.
The first one was the European Federation. It's initial list of members included United Republic of Britain, the socialist kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, and the Republic of Spain. During next few years this alliance was joined by the Socialist Republic of Greece and Republic of Portugal. Their politics were socialist if not communist.
Germany and France remained global pariahs, something enflamed by the partition of Denmark and vassalization of the Low Countries. The status as enemies of everyone else brought them together, leading to creation of an Iron Pact, the last flight of european fascism. Their position was far from desired, as they had enemies on every border.
The Central and Eastern Europe united itself, seeing European Federation, Iron Pact and the New Soviet Union as threats to their sovereignity and life of a significant part of their population. The result was creation of the Visehrad Alliance, composed of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Western Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States. This alliance later saw a number of former Yugoslovia countries slowly gravitate towards it.
Smallpox Pandemic
2047, Worldwide
The last of the great pandemics of the Days of Fire was the return of the once dreaded enemy consigned to oblivion by Mankind's efforts... and ressurected through them. It was the global warming that brought it back, the receeding glaciers uncovering frozen carcasses of people and animals infected during one of the past outbreaks.
The plague spread throughout the world swiftly, taking full advantage of initial disbelief of many countries and mutual accusation of being responsible for engineering and unleashing this plague. The much more closed borders and necessary practice would suppress this pandemic quickly if not for the distinct bad luck of the disease reaching a major airport before anyone noticed that it even existed, carried over by a small group of researchers that came to examine the things uncovered by the receeding glaciers.
The result was a pandemic that lasted for two years and killed close to twenty million people. The casualties would be much greater, but the world at this point had a lot of experience with dealing with the pandemics, and the quarantine measures managed to stop it in time. Due do technological progress it was the last pandemic in human history, with the fact that it was smallpox of all diseases being an unique coincidence.
Ecological Equilibrium
2051, Worldwide
Mankind has succeed in utterly decimating the world it lived in. Centuries of industrialism and conscious alterations of lands inhabited by humans took its toll. The devastation of the Days of Fire only furthered the damage, as eruptions of the supervolcano rarely help biological diversity. Worse, collapse of human civilization was often more destructive that the civilization itself, as the abandoned or destroyed chemical plants and factories poisoned everything in the vicinity.
In the year 2051, the world was in horrible state. Many ecosystems either collapsed entirely or were on the edge of it. Air and water was polluted to a varied if typically rather large degree. Baltic Sea was dead, Great Coral Reef was beyond hope of recovery. The Pacific Garbage Patch grew exponentially. However, something very important changed completely.
The Earth's industrial output was crippled by the long recession and the aftermath of the Green Crash. Population dropped significantly (from close to eight billion right before the Yellowstone Eruption to approximately 6,7 billion in 2050). End of sweatshops and the more equal economic growth together with the focus on clean energy lessened the strain on environment even further.
The ecological equilibrium was achieved almost by accident in year 2051 - Mankind stopped actively worsening the situation, though it had to face the progressively worsening aftereffects of earlier mistakes. What's more, the equilibrium wasn't achieved everywhere, as some regions were still suffering (though others were recuperating). The situation was far from good, but it slowly began improving. The world wasn't capable of launching massive projects required to recultivate the decimated parts of the environment - but it was going to change as the world's situation continued improving.
Second Cold War starts
2052-2054, Worldwide
The European Federation signed an alliance with the New Soviet Union. The EF gains an admittedly rather weak ally that can be used to keep the Visehrad in check. The NSU gains a stronger ally to keep the Visehrad in check and help it with its attempts to reinvigorate the struggling Russian economy. This alliance marked the beginning of the Second Cold War. As more and more countries finished licking their wounds, more and more countries could return to playing international politics. A new power blocs began emerging.
The alliance between the European Federation and the New Soviet Union expanded over time. Western United States joined soon, with Canada following suit. Later on Australia, New Zealand, a number of South American and African nations and a number of chinese warlords joined what came to be known as Union of Progress and Freedom. An alliance of socialists, democratic socialists and communists, seeking a world of equality and personal liberty (though in case of communists the last part tended to be rather limited).
Iron Pact was ready, but it failed to gain a lot of international support, ending up mostly isolated in the continental part of the Western Europe. While no country dared to officially align themselves with the Pact, a number of countries secretly sympathized or made deals with the neofascists under the table.
The third side started in 2054 with a military treaty between the eastern United States and the Texas Republic created to counter the alliance between Canada and western United States. This alliance expanded quickly, and before the end of the year it also included the Visehrad Alliance, Japan, South Korea, Republic of China, Siberian and Far Eastern Republic, Brazil, and both Catalonia and Basque Country. It was the birth of the first iteration of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy.
What followed was the armaments race that overshadowed the recovery from the disasters of the early Days of Fire.
First Arcology constructed
2055, Worldwide
First plans and attempts to create an arcology started decades ago, but they were never a really feasible prospect due to low interest and limited technologies. This changed in the aftermath of the Green Crash. It enflamed interest in 'functional ecology', and arcologies - structures and small settlements designed from the scratch to house maximum amount of people with maximum comfort but minimal environmental impacts - fit right in.
World's first real arcology was the Detroit Self-Sufficient Habitat (DSSH) created in Detroit as a part of the eastern United States' recovery effort of its western territories. It was a large, thirty-stories high construction capable of housing fifteen thousand inhabitants in adequate comfort - including an on-site chapel, kindergarten, primary school, a small clinic, and a large and mostly automated shopping mall. With its rooftop and significant part of the walls covered in solar panels, it was self-sufficient in terms of energy. What's more it also possessed a build-in water treatment station, allowing to recycle water, which together with rainwater made it self-sufficient on that field as well.
DSSH was first arcology out of many, finished slightly ahead of schedule due to the eastern United States' government deciding to outrun the similar project launched by its western competitor. As more and more arcologies were made, the cities and villages throughout the world began shrinking. A single small arcology could replace a small town, and by the 2100 few large ones could replace an entire city.
Cities changing from urban sprawl into several interconnected superstructures surrounding by idyllic parks were only the most visible of changes. The shrinking of general population together with the shrinking of settlement lead to major parts of Earth's landmasses left to the recovering nature. The arcologies were also much more resistant to the spread of diseases and criminal activity,
Second Space Race starts
2057, Solar System
The second Space Race was caused by a combination of the political tension and the economic rebirth. The world stopped receiving a blow after blow and managed to lick the most pressing of wounds, allowing it to focus on other endeavours. Rebuilding the world and its environment was one thing. However, this required resources (many of which could be found in space - that also allowed to potentially outsource the least clean and dangerous industries to a place where there was nothing to pollute. And what if THEY were the first ones to reap the benefits?
The first move was the installation of Curiosity, the replacement for now defunct International Space Station, through combined efforts of the members of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy. It started in 2065 and ended in 2067, and for a while remained the largest thing ever placed in space by Mankind. The construction of Unity, its rival station created by the Union of Progress and Freedom, started in 2066.
Both stations acted as a staging point for the space exploration. Besides 0g laboratories they all possess large storage areas and dry docks where ships can be placed for easy repair and maintenance without the need to return to the Earth's surface. Overtime new elements were added, such as large hydroponics area allowing the space exploration crews to grow their own food. In the end, the crews still had to be regularly replaced due to long-term presence in a 0g environment causing health issues, however every bit of resources produced in space meant less money spent on carrying them to the orbit.
Skyhooks Constructed
2060, Earth's Orbit
The crucial part of the early space exploration was the struggle to lower the costs of lifting objects to the orbit. The orbital elevator was an impossibility without a massive influx of resources, but skyhook was something much more possible. It was pretty much a floating cable anchored to a space station that allowed to transport resources up and down, with help of some large aircrafts.
WIth large orbital construction already on the orbit, the skyhook construction was now a feasible concept. Within three years both the Curiosity and Unity possessed active skyhooks, rendering the space exploration as something notably cheaper, even if still rather complicated due to the need to employ aircrafts to transport goods around.
The creation of a skyhook has also sparked a growing interest in concept of a true space elevator, especially among the leadership of the Union.
Asteroid Mining begins
2062, Inner Solar System
Asteroid mining was a long-standing dream of Mankind, offring a prospect of almost unlimited resources waiting to be picked up. Before the creation of the skyhooks the largest issue was the transport of ore back to Earth - the estimates indicated that transport issues were going to increase the price of resulting materials beyond what was considered an acceptable price.
Now, however, it changed. The Union's mission landed on the Ryugu asteroid in the year 2062, drawn in by the iron and nickel deposits estimated to be worth at least 80 billion pre-Yellowstone dollars. Soon first packages of metals began began arriving on Earth, and Alliance joined the industry - it might have lost the battle but was ready to win the war in the end. With skyhook great yet limited capacity, the deliveries failed to overwhelm the Earth's economy, but offered great prospects for large engineering projects.
Soon, however, things changed quite a bit as the Union decided to invest the resulting resources in the Mankind's greatest engineering project thus far.
Orbital Elevator Constructed
2065-2075, Earth
The idea of creating a space elevator was a theoretical possibility due to both the successful recovery from the most pressing damages dealt by the Days of Fire, the recent technological developments and the recently attained access to a growing number of resources mined from the asteroids.
Alliance refused to consider such a construction, due to how difficult it was. It was going to drain extreme ammount of resources and required cutting-edge (and often not fully tested) technology to have any chance of succeeding. Why bother? Alliance decided to focus their newly achieved resources on revitalizing its economy. Union, in the meantime, decided to launch the project, the increasingly central-planned economy operating under slightly different mindset. The construction started on the coast of Equador.
To Alliance's shock, it become apparent by the year 2070 that the Union was going to succeed. The prospects of Union's economic domination led to a general panic and a rival project of orbital elevator construction that started in eastern Brazil. The positioning in both cases caused by the fact that area surrounding equator was the best location for the elevator. The Pact eventually failed to participate.
Alliance failed to succeed. Two years were wasted on political rivalry concerning the location of the elevator. Then the rushed construction caused significant setbacks, and finally the production was stalled by the economic instability caused by the massive influx of materials from the Union's elevator.
First Medical Nanomachines
2066, Worldwide
The economic rebirth in the aftermath of the Green Crash has also stimulated technological advancements on numerous fields. With no disasters befelling Mankind every few years, the money could finally be invested in some progress instead of continuous efforts to maintain what was already there. The first of the large discoveries of that period were first medical nanomachines.
Of course, they were yet to become the panaceum that they are centuries later. They couldn't suppress every imagineable bacterial and viral disease, but they could be used as an extremely good carrier of anti-cancer drugs, carrying the substances potentially toxic to the organism at large right into the center of the problem. This discovery triples survivability in majority of cancer cases within a decade.
By the end of that decade nanomachines could also be used as diagnostic tools, as with rudimentary ability to communicate they could take readings of various processes (and chemical composition) from insides of the body. It was only the beginning of the long road in front of nanomachines.
Neural Interface Developed
2068, Worldwide
The second of the great technological developments of the late Days of Fire was the neural interface. While similar technologies were developed and fielded earlier, all of them lacked some of the functionalities neessary to be considered a finished thing. This finally changed in 2068 when scientists of one of the major megacorps succeeded where others failed.
Neural interface was a direct connection between one's brain (or any other part of the nervous system) and a computer. Initially this breakthrough allowed development of a completely new generation of prosthetics that could bo controlled with natural neural stimuli, virtually indistinguishable on that field from normal body parts. The VR technology and first functional exoskeletons benefited greatly as well.
The transfer was still merely one-sided - these technology allowed machines to 'receive' neural impulses and act accordingly. The full, two-sided transfer was something that still needed many years to be perfected.
Orbital Crisis
2070, Earth
Iron Pact's forces were still mostly consigned to a single continent on Earth, the situation that was hardly favourable for its longterm plans. Neither Hauser nor Delacroix were still around, and both of the Pact's regimes turned slightly laxer in the meantime, but their past crimes were horrible enough to ruin their PR forever. As a result, nobody wanted the Pact to expand.
Pact attempted to construct its own orbital station, but only its rough framework was erected before the Orbital Crisis happened. Union of Progress and Freedom accused Pact of plans to install weapons of mass destruction in the station and threatened to destroy it if Pact doesn't abandon the construction. When the Pact refused to obey, the Union actually did destroy the station, though they evacuated (some say 'kidnapped') workers from it before planting charges and destroying the whole structure.
This event was the first case of space boarding action and first space firefight (as one of the workers turned out to be political officer who carried a gun). It also almost sparked a war between the Union and Pact. It was averted because Alliance sided (against themselves) with Pact, claiming the operation to be a 'space piracy' done with no tangible evidence for Pact's plans. It was the Alliance' reaction to a number of lesser incidents caused by Union, which began infuriating some of the Alliance' members.
This was enough to have the Union back down and agree to pay reparations for the damage dealt, essentially humiliating it in the process. The orbital crisis managed to worsen already strained relationship between the Union and the Alliance, but also threw a wrench in Pact's attempts to join the space race.
'Artificial Gravity' Developed
2071, Worldwide
One of the largest problems of extraterrestrial expansion was the gravity. Prolonged exposure to low gravity caused a number of negative effects on one's body, making long-term habitation a major medical hazard. Unfortunately creating artificial gravity was apparently a technological impossibility, despite the technological progress - its creation remains an unrealized dream of Mankind for next seven centuries. However while creating such a thing was impossible, simulating the effects of gravity with some different process was something much easier.
For a while Mankind attempted to circumnavigate the problem with centrifugal force generated by making the crew quarters on its ships rotate. It was a cheap and useful trick that worked well in space. However with the establishment of extraterrestrial colonies being right behind the corner, a new solution had to be found. One easier to employ on the surface of planets and moons.
The result of the furious research was creation of a method of simulating gravity via diamagnetic force. First generation of the diamagnetic field generators could simulate gravity of up to 0,5g, and devoured so much energy that they had to be shut down during ship's maneuvers. First ships using this technology installed the field generators only in the crew quarters section. However as the technology improved, the more powerful reactors were developed. This together with improved diamagnetic fields allowed mankind to simulate Earths' gravity around year 2100.
Further developments on the field of diamagnetism amplification opened the option of employing them as inertia dampeners, slowly improving the ship's maximum acceleration achievable without changing their crews' into a paste.
Manned Mission to Mars
2071, Mars
Before the Days of Fire started, majority of Mankind expected the first human to land on Mars at worst around 2035, maybe even earlier. The series of disasters succeeded in sinking all countries that were capable of doing that, and with giant economic recession private companies possessing necessary know-how lacked funds to risk such an endeavour. The Mankind's expansion throughout the Solar System froze for decades... which now came to an end.
The initial expedition was purely a research one, but once it returned successfully the Alliance's ambition grew. Preparations for establishment of a permanent outpost on Mars were launched almost immediately. It was going to take several years, as the Alliance's base of operations was established on Mars in 2078. For the time being, the Alliance took the lead in the space race, but this superiority turned out to be merely temporary due to Union finally finishing the orbital elevator.
The mission to Mars wouldn't be possible without the post-Green Crash recovery and the subsequent acceleration of technological development. An entire new generation of engines had to be created in order to reach Mars in a reasonable timeframe. Creation of new stations on the Earth's orbit was crucial in that, as it offered the Alliance and Union an ability to test their developments in space while cutting costs of such experiments.
Lunar Colony established
2073, Moon/Luna
While the Alliance pooled its resources in order to reach Mars, the Union decided to settle for something much less extreme, a lot more cheaper and with greater short-term prospects. The result was an establishment of Mankind's first extraterrestrial colony on the surface of the Moon. The colony was rapidly expanded, despite the growing costs of transporting resources from Earth before the successful end of the orbital elevator construction.
The establishment of the Union's colony on the Moon caught the Alliance off-guard, especially as the Union was looked down upon ever since the the successful mission to Mars. The result was a rude awakening and rushed establishment of Alliance' colony on the Moon in year 2074. With the Union having a large headstart and completely focus on that very project, the Union's colony remained several times larger and quickly changed into Mankind's first extraterrestrial city.
It soon become apparent that there's some deeper reason behind the forced (and slightly rushed) expansion of the Union's colony.
Union Economic Miracle
2076-2083, Inner Solar System
The vast difference between the Alliance and Union's space programs was make clear in the year 2076, when the Union used the Unity station and its lunar colony as the staging ground for a massive expansion of asteroid mining process. The result was a flood of cheap resources that was successfully exploited by the Union's economy.
Ore was harvested from the asteroids, and then transported to the Union's lunar colony where the metals were processed and refined, while also taking advantage of some of the metallurgic processes possible only in low g environment. Some resulting materials were made into tools and parts and used to fuel the Union's space program. The rest was send to Earth through Union's space elevator, forming an inexhaustible source of relatively cheap metals to fuel the economies of the Union's member states.
Alliance was utterly surprised by this development once again. Its space program was focused on reaching Mars and developing permanent habitation there. Asteroid mining was focused on supporting that initiative and helping the planetary reclamation and rebuild efforts. Alliance was forced into desperate efforts to accelerate its orbital elevator project (resulting in more malfunctions and mistakes that delayed the project further). The Union entered a period of sudden economic development.
Third World War
2083-2089, Inner Solar System
Third World War was a conflict long in the making. The Cold War continued on for many, many years, with both an armaments race and a number of small proxy conflicts between the three competing power blocs. These events mostly stayed below the radar of the population as a whole, but the leadership of the Union, the Alliance and the Pact were painfully aware of how heated they were.
The Union of Progress and Freedom wanted to spread the equality and progress - by force, if necessary. What's more, it's relations with Alliance were extremely strained due to increasing conservatism and capitalism of the Alliance, and the fact that it seemed to be cooperating with the Pact (it didn't, but some events could be interpreted in that way). Iron pact dreamed of conquests and freedom from being surrounded by enemies and embargoed by the world after the old genocides. And Alliance, while officially created to 'preserve democracy', was just as warmongering as the two other power blocs, with many members having goals and plans that required collapse of Union or Pact to come to fruition.
The final spark that caused the war was a disaster on the Moon. A transport vessel filled with ore malfunctioned and ended up crash landing right next to the Union' colony, killing thousands and throwing a wrench into the Union' lunar base ability to process ore. This was seen as an act of sabotage (and a desperate measure on the Alliance's side) and caused a number of political incidents and accusations that finally led to an open war. Purely conventional one, as unleashing nuclear weaponry would be of no benefit to anyone. The war was waged on multiple fronts, including first extraterrestrial engagement in Mankind's military history.
The Third World War was also what essentially ended the concept of nuclear deterrents on Earth. It prove that countries tend to not use respond with nukes when the assault is purely conventional. The reason was a significant (though not total) nuclear disarmament after the war ended.
LUNAR FRONT was a purely secondary campaign waged on the Earth's natural sattelite between the forces of the Union and the Alliance. It played a supportive role for the war on Earth, as if the Alliance succeed in capturing the Moon it would halt the on-going Union' asteroid mining effort, thus stopping the resource deliveries crucial for the on-going Union's war effort. Despite the major devastation that the Union's colony suffered in the accident opening the war, it's colony was still much larger and its larger military presence succeeded in overwhelming its opponents. By the beginning of 2085 the entire Moon is under firm control of the Union, and by the beginning of 2086 the Alliance' orbital station was successfuly seized, ending the extraterrestrial war in Union's favour.
On 16th June 2086 all benefits coming from that were successfully negated, as the Alliance mounted a massive aerial operation from the bases in Brazil during which the Union's orbital elevator received heavy damages. Union failed to repair it before the war ended.
NORTH AMERICAN FRONT was an attempt to reunify the United States composed of two lesser frontlines. The first one was between the Republic of Texas and the Eastern United States and the Western United States. The second one was between the Eastern United States and Canada, which was a democratic socialist member of the Union since 2066. The initial battles were mostly fought in the ashen wastelands of the old central United States, and it was the Alliance that came on top pushing the WUS back to its core territories while keeping Canada from gaining ground in the north. However the logistic difficulties accompanying the invasion on the Western United States (on the other side of the ash-covered wasteland) led to a stalemate that lasted until 2088, when Canada officially withdrew from the war as the Union's defeat become obvious.
WESTERN EUROPEAN FRONT was dominated by the Iron Pact's desperate defens against concentric assault from the north (Norway and Sweden), south (Republic of Spain) and west (United Republic of Britain). While France and Germany possessed vast reserves of manpower, the Pact was resource-starved after decades long embargo. Its industry was barely operating, and its armies lacked modern hardware. It was only through sheer stubborness, fanatic zeal and natural borders (Danish Straits to the north, English Channel to the west, and the Pyrenees to the south) that the Pact withstood the initial offensive. Especially as the European Federation maintained total air superiority for the majority of the conflict, and the bombs kept raining on Pact's cities.
The Alliance' direct participation in the war in the western european theatre ended around December 2083, when the Catalonia and Basque Country fell to the joint forces of the Republic of Portugal and Republic of Spain. The indirect participation started when the Alliance made the 'Deal with the Devil' treaty and began supplying the Pact's armies with modern military hardware, ammunition and fuel. What's more, this deal allowed the Pact to move its forces from its border with the Visehrad Alliance, giving it the most crucial strategic reserves that it lacked earlier.
The Federation's offensive was finally halted in 2085. At its peak the United Republic of Britain controlled a significant part of the Low Countries following a successful naval invasion and a popular rebellion, while its northern allies retook continental Denmark and the Spain had a land border with the remnants of Italy. By the beginning of the 2087 the Federations' forces were successfully pushed back from the Pact's territory, and the successful counterinvasion was launched. Republic of Spain and Republic of Portugal surrendered unconditionally six months before the official end of hostilities, while the Sweden and Norway did so two weeks before the official peace negotiations.
EASTERN EUROPEAN FRONT was where the outcome of the war was decided. Visehrad Alliance (part of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy) made a direct confrontation with the New Soviet Union (representing the Union of Progress and Freedom). The initial course of the war was a stalemate lasting until 2085, followed by a series of disastrous defeats of the Alliance. They were caused by both the growing numerical superiority of the Soviets and the end of hostilities on the Siberian Front where the Soviet Union steamrolled the Siberian and Far-Eastern Republics.
The Union planned to have the Soviets steamroll the continental Europe too, essentially repeating (successfully) the 1920' war. Soviets were to push through the Belarus, Ukraine and Poland, assaulting the Iron Pact's forces from the east, leading to Pact's collapse and establishment of ground connection between the European Federation and the Soviet Union. The rest of the war would be cleaning up the southern members of the Visehrad Alliance. This plan was slowed down the Alliance's 'Deal with the Devil' that allowed the Visehrad to move its entire forces east, and then derailed completely by the Day of Judgment counteroffensive.
With the Union possessing superiority in numbers (mostly due to industrial superiority caused by availability of free resources imported from space), the Alliance decided to put faith in cutting edge science. Numerous science projects were launched, all of them equally desparate and in a way repeating the Hitler's search for wunderwaffe. Unlike Hitler, however, the Alliance succeeded in achieving a number of breakthroughs that were enough to turn the tide. Mostly because the Alliance waited with using the new weapons until it possessed enough of the new equipment to make a change.
Day of Judgment was a counteroffensive that took full advantage of a large numbers of 1st generation AA laser batteries and magnetic weaponry. The result was a total rout of Soviet forces, which suffered devastating casualties during the first twenty-five hours of the battle - only then their high command finally understood the scale of the disaster and stopped counterattacking. Within this time more than six hundred combat aircrafts were shot down, and more than one thousand tanks were destroyed or abandoned, with no less fifteen divisions destroyed entirely, surrendering after being encircled or losing its combat ability.
The New Soviet Union war effort collapsed entirely. There was no longer war in the east, only a continuous, nightmarous massacre of the Union's forces. Fearing the repetition of the mistakes of the Napoleon and Hitler, the Alliance refused to enter Russia after pushing Soviet forces out of occupied territories of Belarus and Ukraine. Instead it took advantage of the devastating casualties sustained by the Russian airforce to initiate the three years long campaing of air raids. Power plants, dams, factories, and main communication hubs were systematically obliterated (together with airbases housing whatever remained of the Russian airforce), Thousands of bombs and missiles were deployed every day for almost nine hundred days. The resulting collapse of public morale and industry together with the humanitarian disaster effectively kicked the Soviet Union out of the war.
SIBERIAN FRONT was a shortlived desperate efforts of the Siberian and Far Eastern Republics (supported by the South Korea and the Japan) to avoids getting swallowed by the Soviet Union. These efforts were unsuccessful, and by the end of 2085 the Russia once again reached the Pacific Ocean. Plans of the ground invasion of Korea were delayed by the intensifying defense of the Visehrad Alliance and scrapped completely after the Day of Judgment. The result was the limited Alliance counteroffensive, with Japan and Korean forces retaking the eastern coast of Russia (effectively restoring the Far Eastern Republic). The plans to push into Siberia didn't come to fruition before the war ended.
PACIFIC FRONT was another secondary and mostly unimportant front. Majority of engagements on the Pacific Ocean occured between the forces of the South Korea, Japan and the Taiwanese Republic of China (representing the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy) and the Australia and New Zealand (representing the Union of Progress and Freedom), with the Alliance members simultaneously fighting the communist warlords of China and trying to keep the Siberian and Far Eastern Republics alive. A number of larger battles also occured in the east, between the fleets of the Alliance and the Western United States.
In the end, majority of the battles were either inconclusive or failed to yield significant territorial changes. Alliance won a minor strategic victory by keeping the local members of the Union from reinforcing its war efforts on the other continents.
Third World War Ends
2089, Inner Solar System
Third World War ended with a decisive victory of the Iron Pact and the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy. While Alliance lost the war on the Moon and spent years in a complete (and bloody) stalemate in North America and slightly less complete and bloody stalemate in the Pacific, it was the Europe that decided the outcome of war. The Soviet Union was kicked from the war, while the European Federation lost to the Iron Pact. It was a military and political disaster that the Union couldn't hope to recover from. The result was the peace talks, which started while the Union still had at least some cards in their hands.
NORTH AMERICA saw the United States reunited under the leadership of the former eastern United States. Texas Republic rejoined the US, but with a well-defined and expansive autonomy making it a country within a country. Former western United States was thoroughly 'decommunised', with hundreds of thousands of prisoners used as labour force for the reclamation effort of the ashen wasteland of the central United States. Canada was forced to pay large reparations, but avoided any border corrections.
WESTERN EUROPE become the playground of the Iron Pact. Norway and Sweden were occupied and 'released' as Scandinavian Republic, under Pact's 'guidance'. Republic of Spain become another satellite country of the Pact, and Catalonia and Basque Country failed to regain independence (which soon become a major source of tensions between the Pact and the Alliance). United Republic of Britain would have maintained its indepedence if not for mass riots that soon turned into a civil war that the Pact intervened into. In the end Pact seized the Britain, Scotland and Wales, while the Northern Ireland was saved by timely annexation by the Ireland. Republic of Portugal was technically independent, but the Pact seized it few years after the peace treaty. Ireland avoided the same fate by joining the Alliance in 2092.
EASTERN EUROPE saw collapse of the Soviet Union. No border corrections were made, but millions of Russians left in Ukraine, Belarus and Baltic States were encouraged to emigrate back to Russia or the Republic of Kaliningrad that officially joined the Visehrad Alliance in the aftermath of the war. In exchange for allowing Russia to maintain its territories in the west the Visehrad demanded gigantic reparations in both money and works of arts that crippled Soviet' economy and national pride. Crippled, but not destroyed, as it turned out.
FAR EAST was mostly returned to the pre-war status quo, with some small differences. Australia and New Zealand were forced to pay large war reparations. Most of the communist warlords in China were defeated - most, but not all. The remaining warlords that hoped for the restoration of the PRC had their resources pooled together and began slowly gaining ground in the aftermath of the war. The remnants of North Korea regime (slowly decaying for years due to lack of China) are officially dismantled, beginning the process of reunification of Korea.
The largest change was the fact that the now-rebuild orbital elevator was seized by the Alliance, acting as the core source of the Alliance's post-war hegemony.
Lunar War
2090, Moon/Luna
The Union forces controlling the Moon refused to accept the outcome of the war and attempted to remain an independent enclave of the Union by threatening the Alliance and Pact with usage of the moon's gravity and magnetic rail systems to launch projectils at Earth. The bluff is called when the joint Alliance-Pact operation is conducted and within two weeks the forces of the Union on the Moon officially surrender. No projectiles were launch during that time.
The chaos and fundamental lack of stable political order was what defined the Days of Fire. In a way it was an interval between the post-Cold War system and the post-World War Three system, all its attrocities and disasters caused by how abrupt the ending of the old system was. The Third World War was what finally decided what the new world order was going to be. The victory of the Alliance safeguarded the market economies and preference for freedom over liberty.
As Lunar War was the last campaign of the Third World War, it is also considered the end of the Days of Fire.
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