The Red War
(Feels a little too generalized for the humans' side, but it's a good start. I'm making notes on this as reminders for future revisions, they'll all be coloured like this so that they're easy to pick out. - AuraGuard/Rílaméth/Ryla)
A war that sparked after Giltera Elenisia was assassinated.
His death rippled through all vampires, killing many and weakening more, which only bred resentment among vampires towards humans.
Many humans were unsympathetic towards their plight, and enough were joyous about it that it incited frequent, smaller conflicts. Emboldened, numerous humans began to hunt vampires, which escalated things yet further. (A bit more detail on the types of escalations would not go amiss here. Looking at the documentation of similar conflicts, such as those written about on Wikipedia, may provide a good inspiration source for what may be important enough to mention/what may've gained media traction.)
Bitter over the loss of the first vampire and being hunted like animals, the vampires retaliated en masse, resulting in pockets of fighting the world over. Try as he might, Ithamar Roz Elenisia could not contain the violence nor talk his fellow vampires down once the conflict gained momentum. Rather than continuing his futile efforts, he spearheaded what he felt was the only option: Organizing and leading the war effort proper.
Under his command, the vampires unified, and assaulted human cities with precise coordination, slaughtering many. All the while, Ithamar kept repeating a singular, concise message at every broadcasting opportunity:
When humans lay down their weapons, we will lay down ours. Merely relent, and we might broker a peace.Many human leaders desperately wanting to eradicate what they saw as an overpowered, highly dangerous threat, this simple message was ignored for the better part of three years as the world war raged on. Over the many months, however, Ithamar's people assassinated or otherwise murdered many of the most powerful country leaders, and began to claim central cities as their own, setting up regimes(?) and imposing strict laws and regulations on the local human populaces. As they claimed land, they gained more political power and sway. They continued to try forcing humans to surrender, to little avail, but as casualties mounted on both sides, many humans who were merely caught up in the mess started to pressure their leaders to give up the fight. (Political leaders generally need a lot more than just racial hatred to maintain a costly war with a group, plus there'd be major propaganda machines, along with defectors on both sides - some of which may be pretty significant. Not to mention the economic impacts. Sanctions, embargos, the casualties are actually surprisingly low considering the expansiveness of the war - we're not just talking two countries at war, we're talking a good chunk of humanity against a 'race' (for want of a better term) who're all essentially living weapons of mass destruction when they become so inclined. Terra would be doing more than just sending some infantry to duke it out on foot with the vampires, there'd be air raids, artillery volleys, infiltration on both sides (not just the vampires doing it), cyberwarfare (where the vampires' supernatural, psionic, and arcana abilities would be of no help), plus the vampires don't actually have any real land of their own, so they'd have fewer resources to work with once governments started freezing any assets held in banks and whatnot. By 'real land' I mean land they have absolute governmental ownership and control of - currently, all vampire clans exist within countries, there are no actual countries consisting of vampires. So the vampire supply chains would take a huge hit pretty early on (likely forcing them into guerilla warfare tactics rather than direct). They're powerful, enough that it is reasonable for them to give as good or even better than they get, but they're also in a position of extreme disadvantage. They're a population of, putting all of the then-existing clans together (which earlier conversations had theoretically put at maybe 3-5 clans), maybe a couple hundred thousand at most, and much more likely a few tens of thousands. This, against a population of likely several hundred million at a minimum, if not a population once more in the billions. Humanity would've drastically recovered their population by the time of the Red War. We're a reasonably fast-recovering species when it comes to repopulating after disasters. (One of the main reasons why we've become the dominant species on our planet - we recover from truly staggering losses relatively quickly when compared to other species.)) Ithamar and his closest circle continued to try brokering peace directly with country leaders, but still many refused, fueled by fear and amassed hatred. At wit's end, Ithamar finally came up with a ploy. For a time, the vampire forces went on the defensive, but largely fell silent, and Ithamar ceased his broadcasts. Then, on the night of a new moon, every single leader of every nation was assassinated, along with their chain of command to the fifth rank and their top generals, creating multiple power vacuums. With their heads cut off, many nations floundered to maintain cohesiveness, and the scales of the war tipped. Now having the advantage he needed, Ithamar stepped up to make one more broadcast.
I warned you all, yet none listened. If it is peace you want, tell your remaining leaders to come to me. I will be watching, and waiting.(I also don't think a flawless execution of the worldwide assassination would've been possible, if only because humanity would've had the tools to counter most of what gives vampires an edge - political leaders would've had trained security personnel (with a good number of them likely to be blunts, psychics, and arcanists, all trained to work together for efficiency and to cover the widest array of threats possible). The countries with weaker political security measures or more overconfident political leaders would've probably had that assassination succeed, but it's simply too massive an operation to have been completely successful - there'd've absolutely been quite a number of survivors, especially among the more cautious and prepared. Also, I recall that Japan is actually its own country still in Etherium, so we could add that country to the list of neutrals - which would help add some more dynamics to the war's landscape. Along with it being a good idea to work out MédiAdvanz's role throughout the war (essentially serving a similar function to 'doctors without borders' today, I think). Humanity would also still have a lot of the protocols and defences that'd've certainly been developed during Thanos' multiple reigns of terror, and anything that'd've worked at all on Thanos would be likely to work on vampires too. We're not really a species all that inclined to sit around meekly while someone with a ton of power goes around blowing things up. If we can't match strength for strength, we get creative and put think tanks on innovative solutions using tech and strategy. Since Thanos was more inclined to just be wantonly destructive rather than particularly perceptive (though not an idiot), it's likely that such relics of his reigns would primarily involve misdirection (to divert assaults away from civilians and key strategic locations, as an example) and probably means of shielding or even cloaking large areas. Which, they'd definitely get use against vampires too. Now, vampires are not one person, and as they all start out life as humans themselves, they'd likely have their own innovators and tech people and think tanks too, so this'd likely be an area to become an arms race. Humanity wouldn't be able to just sit and rely on older tech, because reasonably speaking, the vampires would have the educated intellectuals required to research ways and methods around such things (which Thanos, in his 'one man against the world' rampages probably didn't have the mental stability to spare that much thought or - especially - patience towards, as there's a difference between knowing better and actually giving enough of a damn).) Though tensions remained high, this effectively put an end to the war, as Ithamar got his wish. In an atrium where he and the remaining leaders gathered, he imposed many conditions and stipulations regarding the vampires' withdrawal from the conflict, and most of them were met. Vampires would be given reign over multiple cities, although no capitals, and humans would outlaw the hunting of vampirekind everywhere. Other conditions included the passing of laws that favored vampires rather than restricted their freedoms, but primarily, Ithamar's goal was to gain for vampires the same rights that they once had as pure humans. Peace attained, Ithamar returned home, and instructed his fellow vampires to do the same - if they still had homes. (Mind, because vampires start out life as humans themselves, it would mean that the Red War would also have similar inter-family tragedies that the real world Russian-Ukraine war is having - people related on both sides, who regardless of their stance on the war itself, have to worry about the safety of loved ones on the other side of the frontlines (and who may even be on the frontlines). A vampire with parents and siblings and nieces and nephews, even potentially children of their own, doesn't suddenly stop having all of that family the day they turn. And while the human-vampire tensions might cause some families to reject new vampires, others may retain strong ties. Then there'd be the hate groups, warmongers, and people who've simply had way too many bad experiences with asshole vampires to consider that vampires are not all assholes. Inter-racial issues, when they explode, explode hard and are definitely very widespread among civilian populations. It's quite likely the Red War could even spark off multiple civil war conflicts, resulting in an event not dissimilar to real-world World Wars - hell, you could even legitimately classify the Red War as a World War. With all the inter-human, not just human-vs-vampire, conflict that it brings with it. Because as a species, we don't tend to agree on much. The whole vampire thing, with how the lore is currently set, is so supercharged a political issue that humanity would be going to war with itself as well as the vampires, when I really think on it and look at all I've read on how prior wars have gone down and what sparked them. Also: War Crimes. Very important to cover in such a major conflict, and there'd be war criminals on all sides, because no matter how well-curated a group, you're gonna get those special kinds of assholes in any group above at most a couple hundred. People who specifically target civilians, people who use weaponry more designed to cause pain than anything else, concentration-camp-style stuff is likely to be used by any group with a truly staggering degree of hatred towards another group (Nazis vs Jews, Russian political elite vs Ukrainians...). The Red War, at its core, looks to be a war that goes from retaliation for an assassination, to a war about the attempted genocide of the vampires and the vampires kind of going 'no you,' with some other sides (both vampire and human) trying to go 'uh, how about no on both counts?'. And any war with attempted genocide does not seem to leave any area particularly untouched, going from humanity's current precedent. Once we get to that point, we seem to just escalate to some truly ridiculous levels by the time it finally ends.)
Belligerents
Strength
2,000,000
Casualties
443,000
Objectives
Acquire peace, equal rights, and outlaw the hunting of vampirekind.
Strength
~1.5 billion, collectively
Casualties
766,000
Objectives
Eradicate vampirekind.
Strength
MédiAdvanz: Est. ~20.1 million, as a multi-national corporation with multiple shells and related sponsored charities.
Casualties
MédiAdvanz: Est. ~40,000, primarily a mix of friendly-fire and falling victim to war crimes.
Objectives
MédiAvanz: Provide medical services to all victims of the war, and provide essential aid to civilians trapped in conflict zones.
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