Our Tattered Flag

In a timeline that is very similar to ours, the greatest conflagration in history rapidly unfolds in front of the eyes of a watchful public. The stage is set in the year of 2019. The aggressive expansion of China across the east Asian sphere is taking a major toll on diplomatic relations with the west, as the plans for the annexation of Taiwan are finalized. The tension comes to a head when an American freighter gets stranded in the South China sea during a naval exercise being conducted by China. A U.S. naval destroyer is struck on the bow while trying to rescue the crew. The situation spins out of control.   In a few short months, China is in a stalemate with the U.S. with neither side budging. North Korea invades the South and unifies the peninsula, Japan's heartland succumbs to a massive invasion force. Taiwan holds out against the unrelenting tide of war. In Europe, an ultra-nationalist promises to re-vitalize the economy of Russia, and unite lost ethnic groups into the motherland. The new leader strongarms the smaller Slavic states to the border, and is soon marching across a battered European Union. This is the world of the Third World War.     The people here are apathetic to the events of the world, willfully ignoring the coming doom, and secluding themselves in the bread and circuses of modern life, until war is at their doorstep. It takes their fathers, their sons, and all pre-conceived notions of safety and the nature of humanity are destroyed in the conflicts insatiable appetite. In the middle of all of it, is a young idealistic man, who is thrown into the meat grinder at the prime of his life, and will have to pick up the pieces when the United States shatters into warring factions after the wars end.     This is the story of the Earth in the Latter Era, a narrative of World War 3 and the result on the rest of the world.