Download Prepare to Battle for World Domination

Prepare to Battle
for World Domination
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Dystopian Wars - A World At War
A WORLD AT WAR!
It is the 1870s, and war rages between the world’s
great powers on a scale never before seen!
At sea, mighty Battle Groups clash; lines of giant
smoke-belching Dreadnoughts and Battleships
hammer one another in deadly combat, supported
by flotillas of smaller craft. Between the thunderous
engagements of massed war fleets are dozens, if not
hundreds, of lesser skirmishes. From the war-lashed
North Sea to the most remote of backwater trade
routes, roving packs of Cruisers, Destroyers and
Submarines hunt down the merchant ships of their
enemies.
On ravaged battlefields around the globe, huge
armies took to the field of battle, spearheaded by
mighty armoured behemoths the size of fortresses.
Bristling with cannon and rocket batteries, these
devastating juggernauts loom over legions of lesser
land ironclads, clashing in massed battle amid raging
maelstroms of steel and thunder that shake the very
earth itself.
In the air, the most extraordinary conflicts of all split
the skies over the warring fleets and armies below.
Whole wings of aeroplanes swirl and tear at one
another like battling swarms of angry hornets, while
Medium and Heavy Bombers empty their deadly
payloads onto their hapless earthbound targets.
But dominating the skies, as their armoured and
naval counterparts dominate the seas below, are the
mightiest of flying engines; packed with cutting-edge
technology and awesome firepower, these sky-giants
are the airborne equal of any naval Dreadnought or
Land Ship, and sport armaments to match.
This awesome new power is the product of advanced
industrial technology and revolutionary new science
turned to belligerent ends. However, the causes for
which the world’s great powers and their allies have
sent their armed forces to war are the same as they
ever were: greed, pride, the hunger for power and
resources, and the unquenchable lust for dominance
over all others.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS
These mighty conflicts would not be possible without
the tremendous power of mass industrialisation. This
technological revolution was itself born in the fires
of war in the 17th Century. Oliver Cromwell, Lord
Protector of the then Republic of Britain, created the
first great manufactories to mass-produce weapons
and armour for his ferociously efficient army and
navy, using them to crush the domestic and foreign
forces arrayed against his grim regime.
Cromwell’s harsh Republic was consigned to the
annals of history soon after his death, but the
industrial and technological revolution he had
triggered proved to be unstoppable. The other
European powers swiftly followed his example,
mimicking the Protector’s heavily-armed and welltrained New Model Army and war fleets of iron
plated ships. The restored monarchy of England,
and then Great Britain, proved no different, building
upon Cromwell’s achievements to preserve the lead
their old adversary had given them.
THE MAKING OF THE GREAT POWERS
This surge of industrialisation transformed the
fractious, warring states of Europe into major
powers. The British and the French in particular
used their new found strength to carve vast empires
out of other parts of the world, while the Prussians
and Russians built their own great dominions within
the Eurasian continent. Yet European industrial
dominance was not to continue for long. As they
explored and fought, they spread the knowledge
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Dystopian Wars - A World At War
DYSTOPIAN WARS - 1870 Onwards
and power of this new technology across the globe,
transforming other nations into significant powers
in the process – some of which would rise in time to
become formidable rivals.
As the 19th Century dawned, the world was
rocked by a series of major conflicts. Although the
previous hundred years were punctuated by all
manner of struggles, these paled in comparison to
the tumultuous turn of the new century. The North
American colonies threw off British rule, assisted by
the power of France. Only a few years later, France
itself was ravaged by a mass revolution that was to
destroy the old French monarchy forever.
THE EUROPEAN WARS
The fall of the French crown was the first in a chain
of events, leading to massive upheavals that shaped
a huge part of the world for the next fifty years. In
France, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control, and
restored the ravaged country to imperial power in
only a few short years. However, Napoleon’s career,
cut short by his untimely death in 1804, was but the
preamble to an even greater conflict.
France’s fall into civil war once more was the signal
for Prussian Emperor Heinrich Otto to put in motion
his plans to make his empire the dominant power
in Europe. He forced unification between his realms
and those of the Habsburgs; the latter weakened by
protracted war with imperial France and fearful of
Russian power.
Civil war between the Republicans and the Royalists
damaged the great French nation severely. The Duke
of Wellington’s armies fought to overthrow the last of
the Bonapartists in Spain, as France’s Mediterranean
empire was carved up between lesser powers in
the region. As the battles raged around them, the
Prussians extended their domains. Sending troops
into France in order to prop up the new French
République, then on into Spain, the Prussians fought
both Bonapartists and the forces of the recently
renamed Kingdom of Britannia. They then annexed
Sweden and the Danish territory of Norway, for what
they called ‘security reasons’.
Heinrich Otto’s imperial appetite grew with each new
conquest. As his ego swelled, he became convinced
of his own infallibility. In 1811, this culminated in
his great invasion of first Poland-Lithuania and then
the Russian Coalition. At first his armoured legions
swept asunder all before them, but vast distances
and sheer Russian stubbornness eventually turned
the tide, and the Russians and their allies beat back
the Prussian invaders.
Prussian power was smashed decisively in the west
in 1815, when Wellington’s Britannians humbled
the flower of the Prussian field armies at Waterloo,
routing the forces of Imperial Marshal Blucher. This
battle was notable for the technological wonders
unleashed by the Britannians upon their enemies;
squadrons of armed aeroplanes, never before used
in such great numbers; and great clanking, smokebelching land-bound leviathans – the forerunners of
the infamous Land Ships that would later become a
part of every great nation’s arsenal of war.
Even before Wellington’s cannon-bedecked, rolling
forts decimated whole Prussian regiments, Admiral
Nelson’s fleet, spearheaded by steam-powered
iron warships studded with turrets rather than
broadsides, had shattered the Bonapartist French
armada at Trafalgar in 1805.
Though the Prussians were eventually subdued
by the grand alliance arrayed against them, the
wars they had pursued had altered the face of the
globe. The modern age was born on the ravaged
soil of Waterloo and Borodino, and in the foaming
waters of Trafalgar and Copenhagen. These grueling
clashes were forerunners, heralding the grim shape
of warfare to come.
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Dystopian Wars - A World At War
PRUSSIAN EMPIRE - 'Metzger'
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Dystopian Wars - A World At War
DYSTOPIAN WARS - 1870 Onwards
THE MODERN WORLD
For the next few decades, however, most of the world
focused on forgetting the terrors of great conflicts
between these modern, so-called ‘civilised’ states.
War was ever present in the background, but for a
while it seemed confined to more distant parts of the
globe. The Britannians fought to expand their rule
to Burma, and to retain it in faraway Australia. The
Empire of the Blazing Sun emerged onto the world
stage in the Far East, battling for and eventually
winning the Korean Peninsula. Deep in Central Asia,
Russian and Chinese armies clashed over Mongolia
in a conflict as hard-fought as it was pointless.
But these clashes were partially obscured by more
spectacular advances in technology. Electricity was
successfully harnessed, by Faraday, Edison and,
most famously, the mysterious visionary Tesla from
his home in the fastness of Prussian Scandinavia.
Many towns and cities grew into sprawling, smogshrouded metropolises. Others, especially in North
America, began to grow upwards: towering, ornate
metal-framed buildings sprouting like strange plants
from the great conurbations of the Atlantic seaboard.
Chemical and biological science underwent a similar
revolution. Medicine made quantum leaps with the
adoption of effective hygiene, new treatments and
mechanical prosthetics. New chemical compounds
revolutionised the production of everything from
fuels to foodstuffs. Ironically, the wars of the recent
past had provided a huge boost to such advances,
helping to forge the world growing in this time of
relative peace.
Nonetheless, while the wealthy enjoyed the fruits
of this brave new age, life for the majority remained
hard, squalid and dangerous. Mechanisation helped
to abolish the institution of slavery in North America
in the 1820s, but the need for swarms of workers to
man the great factories and industries, or to toil in
the fields alongside mechanical farming engines, did
not diminish.
Beneath the ornate and glittering veneer of great
cities, gilded palaces, aristocratic pomp and
technological splendour, the societies of the great
powers and other nations seethed with a volatility
and political fervour that at times bordered on
anarchy. In this fevered atmosphere were born social
upheavals such as the Australian Mutiny of 1842,
the 1848 revolutions that swept across Europe and
the explosion in popularity of Karl Marx’s radical
doctrines, especially in South America.
Alongside all of these advances, the great powers
and their empires constantly grated against each
other, as expansionary efforts continued across
the world. The United States gradually annexed
Mexico and parts of the tottering Spanish empire
in the Americas. The Prussian's solidified their hold
on Greenland alongside their Danish allies; while
the Italians, Ottomans, and Egyptians engaged in
repeated skirmishes over Greece and the eastern
Mediterranean.
THE TREASURES OF ANTARCTICA
In the midst of this roiling, volatile age, an
extraordinary expedition set out from the Kingdom
of Britannia. Its destination was Antarctica, the
vast ice-bound wilderness at the foot of the world.
Its leader was Lord Barnabas Draynes Sturgeon,
eccentric Britannian scientist and minor noble.
Theirs was to be a genuine voyage of discovery!
The expedition was intended to prove a theory shared
only by Sturgeon and few other radical scientific
minds: that the wastes of Antarctica were not empty
and desolate, but instead concealed treasures of
incalculable value. Not surprisingly, Sturgeon and
his comrades were considered cranks by mainstream
science. Few expected them to find anything on
the chilly southern continent – or indeed that they
would come back at all!
The expedition was Sturgeon’s lifelong dream, and
he had spent years pulling together the resources to
organise it. Despite his adversity, he had managed
to secure valuable patronage from certain parties,
in particular Albert, Prince-Consort to Queen
Victoria herself. Other aid came from Tsar Nikolai
of the Russian Coalition at the behest of his son,
Crown Prince Vladimir. Significantly, the Russian
contribution introduced Sturgeon to a scientific
polymath of extraordinary talent: Markov Helsinki.
At first a priceless asset to Sturgeon’s cause, he would
later become the most infamous figure in Artarctican
history.
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Dystopian Wars - A World At War
DYSTOPIAN WARS - 1870 Onwards
The expedition made landfall in Antarctica in
the mid-1840s after a long journey fraught with
difficulties. However, to the surprise of everyone,
not least Sturgeon and his friends, they soon made
what seemed to be a finding of great import. A
series of reconnaissance flights inland revealed an
extraordinary sight – a vast glowing mass of bluegreen crystalline rock, spreading snowflake-like
out across the ice, deep in the desolate Antarctican
interior.
It was not until nearly four years later and after much
hardship that the expedition reached this incredible
site overland. But when they did, what they found
was more astonishing still. Buried within the eerie
crystalline agglomerations, sunken into the earth
and rock and ice, was a strange doorway. Beyond it
lay what would truly become a discovery of earthshaking proportions – the mysterious Antarctican
Vault: a treasure-house of technology and scientific
knowledge without equal in the world.
Yet this extraordinary discovery was at first almost
entirely ignored. Sturgeon was ridiculed as a fake
and a fraud, laughed out of a special symposium
at the Britannian Royal Society. Incensed, he swore
to return to Antarctica – not to simply explore and
catalogue the Vault, but to build a whole new realm,
governed by reason and open-mindedness, free
from what he saw as the hidebound rules of dull
convention and scientific orthodoxy.
Despite such ridicule his fame had grown vastly,
earning him patronage from many other nations.
This time, when he departed Britannia, a great
flotilla of other adventurous souls went with him.
They would form the core of the world’s youngest
nation – the Covenant of Antarctica.
THE STURGINIUM AGE
Despite the immense obstacles lying in the path
of their ambition, it did not take long for the new
‘Antarcticans’ to make their mark on the world.
In these early days, Sturgeon and his closest
companions, driven by a mixture of exploratory
fervour and the need to prove the value of their
discoveries, codified and released a huge amount of
the knowledge they found as they began to explore
the Vault.
The consequences of this were far-reaching. The flow
of ideas stimulated the greatest surge of innovation
and invention since the beginning of the Industrial
Age. At the centre of this was the strange mineral
surrounding the Vault, and which extended in great
veins outwards from it. Codified as ‘Element 270’,
and later named Sturginium, in honour of Sturgeon
himself, this material was the driving force for
numerous staggering discoveries.
Sturginium proved to be the veritable ‘Philosopher’s
Stone’ of legend. It could bestow amazing properties
on other materials; creating revolutionary metal
alloys of light weight and incredible strength;
fuels of tremendous efficiency, and scores of other
applications.
It also formed the core of a series of extraordinary
machines: the ‘Generators’ pioneered all over the
world, originating from Vault knowledge and adapted
to established technology. There were devices that
could project thrumming shielding screens of energy
to defeat projectiles, kinetic enhancers to augment
engine efficiency and machines that could influence
even local weather patterns.
Most incredible of all were bizarre temporal
and distance distorters; engines of near-surreal
complexity that could cause localised warps in time,
or teleport men and materials long distances in a
matter of mere moments.
In 1857, after years of toil, the Covenant of Antarctica
was officially declared as a new nation. For a while,
Sturgeon, and those who shared his vision of a better
world, rejoiced in their achievements. The wave of
new technology, for which they earned the plaudits
they had desired for so long, spread out across the
world.
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Dystopian
WarsDraynes
- A World
At War
Lord
Barnabas
Sturgeon
DYSTOPIAN WARS - 1870 Onwards
Element 270 deposits, though mostly smaller in scale
than the vast treasure of Antarctica, were uncovered
around the world and recognised for what they were.
For a while, the new High Lord of Antarctica and his
councilors dared to believe that the Sturginium Age
would herald a new era of peace and prosperity for
all the world.
Sadly, they were to be cruelly disappointed: their
discovery led quickly to greed and war, once again
revealing the true nature of humankind.
THE SLIDE TO GLOBAL CONFLICT
The eagerness with which other nations absorbed
Antarctican teachings and Vault treasures
was matched only by their drive to take these
incalculably precious gifts and turn them to warlike
ends. New metal alloys and chemicals went into the
construction of Battleships and hulking Land Ships,
cannons and bombs.
Amazing Sturginium-gel Repulsine plate technology,
which allowed a craft fitted with them to defy
gravity itself, became the heart of monstrous flying
war-craft, whose long shadows would bring terror
to those they fell upon. Even the powers of the
Generators were twisted: weather control devices
intended to green the world’s deserts were instead
used to invoke tempests that devastated towns and
villages. Terrifying force projectors were created with
the power to make metal and flesh run like wax.
But their efforts could not prevent human ingenuity
developing ever more dangerous devices from the
knowledge they had already unleashed. Pandora’s
Box had been well and truly opened by the Covenant.
BETRAYAL!
In 1866, the unthinkable happened. Markov
Helsinki, Covenant Master of Engineers, and trusted
member of the Inner Council was unmasked as a
traitor – an agent of Tsar Vladimir of the Russian
Coalition. Appalled, Sturgeon immediately ordered
his intelligence services to apprehend Helsinki and
his co-conspirators.
Even as he did so, a wave of factional conflict swept
through the Covenant. Markov had spent years
building a political powerbase as a cover for his true
activities. His followers, ignorant of the truth behind
their charismatic leader, believed the High Lord to
be acting out of fear and jealousy, in contravention
of the Covenant itself.
Interminable minor conflicts continued to flare up
around the world, now enlivened by desire for a rival
power’s technological and scientific secrets as well
as territory and resources. Despite the scintillating
knowledge and possibilities bestowed upon the
world by the Sturginium Age, basic human nature
– and all its greed, hubris and desire for power and
dominance – remained unchanged.
Within only a few years, Lord Sturgeon and the
masters of the Covenant began to realise that their
incautious actions had spawned a fearful chain
reaction, a ripple effect of unintended consequences
that threatened to shatter the world. From as early
as 1860, when the United States of America was torn
apart by a fierce Civil War, Sturgeon and his council
were scaling back the knowledge they permitted to
leave Antarctica’s shores.
Markov Helsinki, Covenant Master of Engineers
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Dystopian Wars - A World At War
DYSTOPIAN WARS - 1870 Onwards
Fighting broke out between the most fervent
‘Markovites’ and loyal Antarcticans, resulting in
chaos that wracked all the regions of Covenant
territory. Although the revolt quickly subsided when
its participants realised the truth, for the Traitor it
had served its purpose. Amid the anarchic situation
he had provoked, Markov himself and his closest
allies escaped the Covenant, hijacking a prototype
submarine and embarking upon an epic journey
back to the Russian Coalition.
In their wake they left the Covenant and its leaders
shaken and shell-shocked. Lord Sturgeon and his
council had believed themselves and their new
domain above the petty concerns of nationalistic
fervour and factionalism. That conceit was to blame
for the once-great Antarctic political unity which
now lay in ruins.
Although the Antarcticans managed to conceal
news of the internal crisis from the rest of the
world, Markov’s treachery played a major part in the
Covenant leadership’s decision to begin pulling back
from open relations with many other powers.
FLASHPOINT SINGAPORE
As Antarctica reeled, many far-sighted people around
the globe feared that the rest of the world was living
on borrowed time; that it was a matter of when,
rather than if, the great powers would make war
upon each other.
At first, the beginning of the crisis seemed minor.
The East India Trading Company (EITC), jealous
of the growing influence of Blazing Sun mercantile
efforts on what they saw as their ‘home turf’, drove
a prominent Imperial merchant out of their de
facto capital, Singapore, on trumped-up charges
of smuggling. Little did they know that their highhanded arrogance would lead to a catastrophe.
Financially ruined, the slighted merchant took his
own life. Unfortunately for the EITC, his nephew
was a senior leader in the Blazing Sun military, the
commanding general of the Wani, 3rd Division of
the Army of the Sword. This commander, whom
the world now knows only as Oni, had the ear of
High General of the Sword Uematsu who, in turn,
brought what would have been a minor matter to the
Empress’s Council of Seven.
Within weeks, thanks to Uematsu’s skilful politicking,
Oni’s Division had massed in full battle array off the
coast of Singapore in an impressive show of strength.
The Divine Empress Shinzua almost certainly
intended for this to be the sole objective. However,
matters ran devastatingly out of control.
Exactly who fired the first shot is still a mystery,
but the action culminated in the Wani Division
launching a full-scale assault on Singapore. The city
was almost totally razed: its garrison shattered and
its civil population sent fleeing as refugees.
From there, events escalated dramatically. Despite
its own distrust of the EITC, the Kingdom of
Britannia could not afford to allow the challenge to
go unanswered. Within weeks a punitive force, the
45th Expeditionary under Lord Duxford, was pulled
together and dispatched post-haste to Singapore.
However, the resulting action was a bloody failure;
the 45th was almost completely destroyed by a
ferocious hit-and-run campaign masterminded by
the unstoppable forces of Oni.
The 45th’s intervention only served to compel the
Empress into mobilising her Empire’s full military
strength in support of her wayward, but now wildly
popular commander. As the fighting spread into the
Malayan Peninsula, the Britannians set in motion
their own core forces and the conflict intensified.
Oni’s remaining Wani soldiers, their devastating
work now complete, disappeared from view into
the vast Asian interior, but the conflict they helped
spark had gained a savage life of its own. Singapore
and Malaya marked the crossing of a line. Two great
powers were now openly at war for the first time in
decades. They would not be the last.
THE GREAT RUSSIAN MARCH
As a full-scale war in south-east Asia flared into life,
a second conflict boiled up in Europe. The Russian
Coalition, having made common cause with the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, began its great
march to the west. Although offensives also began
in the Black Sea and Caucasus regions against the
Ottoman Empire, the vast majority of Russian
western military strength was devoted to the assault
on Prussian imperial dominions.
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Dystopian Wars - A World At War
DYSTOPIAN WARS - 1870 Onwards
It was this great march that brought into terrifying
view the full effect that Markov's ‘Circle of Scientists'
had had on the Russian Coalition’s armed forces. The
great White Army formations, armed and equipped
with extraordinary new weapons of terrible power,
struck along an immense front from the Arctic to the
Carpathians, while the Black and White Sea fleets
launched their own offensives to force Russian naval
power back out into the great oceans.
The whole of old Royal Prussia was placed under a
state of virtual siege, while the Teutonic Order called
together its forces to defend their Scandinavian
fastness from Russian assaults. Further south, only
the mighty Wolfgang Fortresses, that stretched for
miles along the Prussian frontier, held back the
massed Russian armies and Polish-Lithuanian allies.
The Russian focus on Europe was almost upset by a
brief naval skirmish with American warships in the
Far East, dubbed the ‘Bering Incident’. Although fullscale conflict was avoided, relations remained tense.
THE LONDON RAID
Beset by the Britannian onslaught, the Empire
of the Blazing Sun appealed to their long-time
Prussian associates for assistance. Loath as he was
to risk a full-scale war on two fronts, Emperor
Frederick Grunder, confident of his empire’s ability
to contain the Russian threat, gave orders that a
blow should be struck to remind the Britannians of
their vulnerability. The result was an operation of
extraordinary audacity which took place in 1870 – a
raid on London itself!
Mere hours after the Prussian Empire’s official
declaration of war against Britannia, Prussian forces
under Colonel – later to be General – Matthias
Sturm carried out one of the most ingenious
attacks yet attempted. On that foggy night, a single
experimental Prussian submersible penetrated the
heavy defences of the Thames Estuary, sailing into
the heart of London.
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Dystopian Wars - A World At War
DYSTOPIAN WARS - 1870 Onwards
Upon reaching Westminster, the submarine surfaced
and unleashed a storm of rockets, shells and clouds
of poison gas upon the Britannian Parliament itself.
The attack lasted for over two hours. News of it
spread like wildfire and caused mass panic, hindering
the defenders’ attempts to stop it.
Although little real damage was caused, Luftlancer
troops were able to leave huge Prussian flags draped
from the clock-faces of Big Ben. The submarine then
escaped. The message to the Britannian government
was clear: nowhere is safe, nowhere is beyond our
reach.
The shock of the strike was immense. Lord Westbury,
Britannian minister of war, resigned in disgrace. He
was replaced by Lord Strathgordon, who oversaw
a huge expansion of the Britannian military as
thousands of outraged subjects flocked to enlist.
WAR AROUND THE WORLD
More than any other single incident, the London
Raid was the catalyst that caused the previously
regional conflicts to merge into a single global war.
The belligerents invoked treaties and called upon
allies. More and more powers and regions of the
world were drawn into the burgeoning storm.
In Europe, Britannian forces built up in Belgium
with the intention of striking at both the Prussian
Empire and the Republique of France. The Kingdom
also called upon the Federated States of America for
aid against the Blazing Sun. The Federacy, eager to
expand its influence across the Pacific, was more
than willing to help.
Likewise, French and Italian League forces stood
with the Prussians against the Russian march. The
Ottoman Empire, though it sought neutrality, edged
closer to the Prussian bloc for mutual protection
against the Tsar’s southern offensives.
As the war continued, the great powers and their
lesser allies coalesced into two huge alliances. On
one side stood the Prussian Empire, the République
of France and the Empire of the Blazing Sun, the
core of the so-called ‘Imperial Bond’. Opposing
them, the Kingdom of Britannia, the Federated
States of America and the Russian Coalition, formed
a triumvirate that came to be known as the ‘Grand
Coalition’. Many lesser nations, by accident or
design, were also drawn into the war.
Not all succumbed however. The Covenant of
Antarctica, by dint of distance and security, held
itself aloof; refusing to be swayed, intent on pursuing
its own plans. Several other nations remained
uncommitted to either alliance; though they readied
their armed forces for conflict all the same. Bitter
experience had taught them that mere neutrality
alone is ultimately no defence at all. To add to the
complexity of the war, mercenary activity exploded
as a vast array of private military contractors sought
to profit from all sides!
THE CONFLICT SO FAR
War continued, with new fronts continually opening
up as the great alliances seek new advantages
over one another. An audacious Imperial Bond
offensive from the South Atlantic triggered the socalled ‘Caribbean Emergency’, and Britannian and
American forces rushed to defend a previously quiet
region from a fierce assault.
The fighting that raged was further complicated by
the intervention of Antarctican forces in strength for
the first time. Covenant units struck at both sides,
determined to blunt the effectiveness of their forces
to such a degree as to force a stalemate, albeit with
varying degrees of success.
In northern Europe, a Britannian offensive in strength
was mounted in the Low Countries. The Kingdom
sought vengeance for the London Raid by attacking
the Prussian Netherlands from the source of the
strike, and also to build a foothold on continental
Europe, hoping to drive a wedge between their
Franco-Prussian adversaries.
The Britannians were aided in their offensive by a
Russian expeditionary force. Sent west by the Tsar
with the objective of widening Russian participation
and striking at the hated French, the Russians
played a key role in the campaign. No-one could
have anticipated that the expeditionary force was
to defend the homeland of their ally from the first
cross-channel invasion to be launched in centuries.
In the Pacific, the Americans launched a great drive
against the Blazing Sun, and sought to strike at
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- A to
World
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FSA ground forces, supported by Britannian
Flyers,
move
enagage
a Republique of France Mobile Airfield...
DYSTOPIAN WARS - 1870 Onwards
the Covenant of Antarctica. The Hawaiian Islands
became the scene of a vast conflict with battle lines
that stretched across the ocean as well as on land. The
southern arm of the offensive clashed inconclusively
with Covenant forces upon the bizarre ‘Ghost Island’
of Hooke’s Reach, before driving on into the East
Indies to link up with several other Britannian
imperial contingents.
The Orient also saw major land battles as Blazing
Sun and Chinese formations assaulted the Russian
Far East in support of their European Imperial Bond
partners. Vladivostok was besieged, but held out in
the face of fierce attacks, while at sea, Russian and
American naval fleets managed to bury their distrust
and took the fight to their mutual enemies.
Finally, the Mediterranean and East Africa were also
sucked into the conflict. The French, with Prussian
and Italian aid, sought to rebuild their empire in the
face of Britannian and American opposition. Further
east, Grand Coalition forces tried to drive a path
from the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea through
to their newest allies in Egypt, cutting off several
regions of Ottoman territory from the core of their
empire in the process.
All of these conflicts still rage to varying degrees.
The great alliances are, for the moment, quite evenly
matched. It remains to be seen how the war will
develop, but one thing is certain – its end is nowhere
yet in sight!
THE NEXT REVELATION
For the Covenant of Antarctica, and the various
nations to which it is secretly affiliated, the whole
war is a terrible aberration. All over the world, from
concealed bases and holdings in the territories of
secretly sympathetic nations, Antarctican forces seek
three major objectives. Primarily they aim to blunt
the war efforts of each nation enough to compel
them into peace.
Their second, self-assigned mission is to investigate
and secure any evidence of unusual technology or
knowledge, preventing its capture and militarisation
at all cost. Lord Sturgeon and his Council live in fear
of any other belligerent power discovering another
Vault or anything akin to it. More so than any other
power, they are convinced that the world is changing,
for more reasons than the great war alone.
And of course, the Antarticans, and none more
so than Lord Sturgeon himself, seethe with fury
that Markov, the Traitor, continues to wield such
influence in this war-torn world. Understanding this
as a tertiary objective, they nonetheless yearn for an
opportunity to capture the calculating Russian and
sever his control over the fate of these troubled times.
Strange events are afoot; the South Pacific island
of Hooke’s Reach, over which they had fought the
Americans, had simply appeared from the depths of
the ocean mere months before. Sturginium deposits
are being charted in more and more places around
the world, irrespective of region. Most bizarre of all,
other findings are being made – eerie structures of
unknown power and potency.
These discoveries point towards a stark conclusion –
the full effects of the Sturginium Age upon the world
have barely begun to reveal themselves. The rippling
consequences of the Dystopian Wars may in time
echo throughout not only one world, but perhaps
many others.
• 13 •
Dystopian Wars - A World At War