| The Story - From the ashes of Mankind |
In the near future, around the turn of the 22nd Century, the minor
problems of the world had to become major ones. The population of Earth had
reached 15 billion. Planetary resources were stretched and becoming scarce.
Environmental laws were slowly lifted to increase supplies but the air and water
suffered accordingly. The rich had become even richer and the poorer had become
even poorer. Politics had become almost completely corrupted and fueled through
vastly manipulative media. Even in non-democratic regimes, governments had all
gone into extreme debts and the people began to rebel with violence against the
ever increasing hardships placed on them. Under the weight of fear and
uncertainty it wasn't long before the influence of the few in power began to
start wars against the many.
The first battles were promoted as necessity, small wars started under
thin pretense against resource rich nations. The reaction of the other nations
however was not so small. Skirmishes escalated and large scale battles ensued as
all countries threw in their bid for what was seen as the fight for the last
vanishing scraps of civilization. Soon after however, the premise for fighting
turned ideological as each country blasted its own version of propaganda amongst
its people. The installment of fear kept the people against each other and not
their leaders who shunned any responsibility. With narrow rage setting the world
on fire it wasn't long before humanity plummeted into an abyss.
The overburdened economy of the United States finally crashed unlike
anything in the past. The dollar’s value dropped into junk status sending the
rest of the world’s economy into disarray as well. Whatever order was left
quickly began to evaporate. The practically insane leader of Russia, sensing the
weakness of its long time rival, launched a nuclear strike against the United
States and other countries in attempt to make Russian the new world’s
superpower. The U.S. returned fire. The missile defenses of both sides stopped
most, but not all, of the warheads. The US was mostly devastated but
surprisingly Russia didn't fare nearly as badly. China, however, immediately
invades Russia in response to the war it started while Europe casts away its
allies and attacks several smaller resource rich countries on its own accord.
The world has fallen into its third world war.
The war was brutal and violent without a decisive winner emerging. The
death toll reaches into the billions. Still the war drags on even as the number
of people and leaders dwindle, lost to violence, rebellion or cowardice. It
seems this war will take all of humanity as its final casualty. In Russia, one
of the last remaining good generals and most of his men are summoned to a secret
test facility in Siberia. The countries remaining leaders are there and they
show him a vast hangar with hundreds of new fighters, bombers, tanks and other
weapons with capabilities far more advanced than anything the world had seen.
They told the general to take this army, destroy all the enemies of the
motherland and make Russia the new world order. This general hesitated and asked
where all this new technology had come from. They showed him. They led him into
another small hangar that had only one thing in it. They didn't bother
explaining what it was immediately, the general quickly understood what he was
looking at. It was a spaceship, and one that was obviously not from earth.
They explained that this ship crash landed in Siberia before the war
started, after they were finally able to shoot it down. It had attacked the base
there. After capturing it they were able to reverse engineer most of its
technology. They don't know where it came from or what race built it. There was
no pilot or cockpit as the ship appears to be a machine controlled by artificial
intelligence, most of which was destroyed. The technology they were able to
acquire was fantastic however. Power sources, energy weapons, space faring
propulsion and gravity systems. The leaders of Russia started the war knowing
they would have the weapons to win it. And they now chose their most capable an
reliable general to lead them to victory. This general’s name was Alexander
Volkov.
Alexander was good at being a military leader but despised reckless
warfare and his men revered him for it. He believed the military’s job was to
defend the people, not oppress it. He did not believe in what he doing in this
war, nor in his tyrannical leaders. Nevertheless he accepted this duty and
headed out in all directions with an unstoppable army at his command. He focused
his attacks on military defenses and infrastructure, not bothering to take
territory, and destroyed everything with near impunity even as all other
countries turned against him. It wasn't long before his forces hovered over
every capital of the world. With a final nuclear strike prepared, all the
Russian leaders along with the rich and powerful gathered in the remnants of old
Moscow for a party to watch the destruction of their enemies televised.
Alexander appeared on every view screen in the world and gave a short ominous
speech to people of Earth mentioning the removal of the old and a new age for
mankind. Then, with a press of a button, televised missile silos fire and the
rest of the world cowers in the inevitable outcome. But to the shock of the
planet, the missiles had been aimed at Old Moscow where the upper echelons of
power were gathered. With a flurry of explosions that could be seen from space
all the Russian leaders were vaporized leaving Alexander the sole commander of
an unstoppable army directed at the helpless nations of earth.
Alexander now televises a longer speech that mentions hope and faith in
mankind to return from the brink, the misguided path they have all been taken
down and his desire to return humanity to what it once was. He also televises
the alien spacecraft and describes the new technologies which can solve many of
their global problems. He tells the countries of the world that they must agree
to come together and form one government for all of mankind. A structure of
Volkovs making which places corruption, greed and abuses against one another as
the highest crimes; enforced, but not controlled, by the military. Some
countries rebelled against this idea of world unity but Alexander quickly
dispatched them. The rest of the world was swayed by the circumstances of his
offer and came together to one table. The discussions moved forward under the supervision of Alexander and soon a
constitution was written to form "The Terran Federation".
The system went smoothly. Mankind comes back from the brink and rebuilds
society while Alexander and the military watch over the earth and dispense
justice focused at the upper echelons of power whenever called upon. With the
new technologies, distant stars and planets in the night sky are easily
reachable. Along with their wealth of resources and exploding populations
mankind quickly prospers, populates nearby worlds and finds remnants of other
alien technologies scattered across the galaxy. The explosion of exploration and
human expansion exceeds The Terran Federations ability to police it however. In
response, The Terran Federation passes the Safe Haven Accord. Planets of the
Earth Solar System have the Terran Federations priority but the rest of the
galaxy is left to the people themselves to govern. Earths solar system operates
safely but regulated under federation rule while the frontier of space becomes
governed by the different corporations who are supply everything the quickly
expanding galaxy demands. The one thing unifying all of mankind however is the
new Terran Federation currency, the Galactic Credit.
This is where your story begins. The year is 2165 and you are one of the
many new corporations being formed with ambitions of expanding out into the
galaxy and making a place for yourself in the stars. Regardless if you become a
Mining Mogul, a Military Admiral or a Planetary Emperor if you succeed you will
be known as one of the Barons of the Galaxy.
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