|
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Summary: The disorganized Keidran face complete enslavement by the disciplined Basitians, only barely holding them off through desperate measures. But things change when the new enemy appears. Like the Keidran, they are a desperate race. But they is desperate for different reasons, reasons which the Keidran and Basitian have. And this nation has the ability to drive all before it… at least, until their enemies appear.
Authors Notes: In the version of the Twokinds world used in this story, humans simply do not exist. Instead, the Basitian and the Keidran are the ones with great animosity towards each other, with the Basitian being the stronger power militarily.
Great War
Prologue
Washington DC, September 14th, 2016
“-llo, this is the World News Service Report, with the latest in world politics, sports, and general events. This just-in, the Battle of Korea is officially over. The last South Korean and American forces on the peninsula officially surrendered today to North Korean and Chinese forces. This comes just days after the detonation of a nuclear warhead in the city of Pusan, the last available port in South Korea. The casualties from the battle are unknown, but are projected to be in the tens of millions, most of them civilian.”
“In related news, fighting continued in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where Russian and Chinese forces continue to advance at a crawl. Because of the extensive use of chemical agents and low-yield nuclear devices, civilian casualties in Poland, Ukraine, and Turkmenistan continue to climb at an exponential rate. There have also been reports of disease outbreaks in local and refugee populations, rumored to be caused by biological weapons.”
“Riots broke out in the urban areas of Russia, China, America, Europe, and India yesterday. Citizens, reportedly tired of constant blackouts and food shortages, took to the streets, pushing police departments to the breaking point. Military units were deployed and opened fire on looters, arsonists, and mobs. Casualty reports are unavailable due to ongoing news blackouts in affected countries.”
“In related news-“
It was at that point that President James Myer could not take it anymore, he turned the TV off. He knew what was going to be next: more famines, more economic depression. He also knew what was going to be on tomorrow, more war, more riots, more government oppression of the public, and more deaths.
The 21st Century was supposed to be humanities golden age; it had turned into a nightmare instead. First was terrorism, the public attacks world wide by groups like Al-Qaeda and the backlash from developed countries created an aura of paranoia and hatred between various nations. But much more ignored were the effects humanity had on its environment and the very resources it depended on.
In hindsight, the inevitability of the depletion of the world’s oil supplies, and the consequences thereof, should have been obvious. But people had underestimated, been deceived, or outright ignored the coming disaster. Even when it did become apparent to some in 2007, the energy changes were too little, too late.
First to start was the recession; initially begun due to a combination of issues… oil prices quickly dominated it. Eventually, the economy slipped into a full-scale permanent depression, with massive inflation, unemployment, and homelessness. Next to go was the food supply; again time oil wasn’t the only factor. Sure the high prices meant those large scale industrial farms couldn’t operate their machinery or get fertilizers, but there were more forces at work. The Climate was changing…
As the world continued to heat up from industrial pollution, grasslands turned to desert and the ocean levels began to rise. The lack of food triggered massive famines in the developing world, Africa was hit worst. There, whole nations and societies disintegrated as people battled one another for the remaining food and water. As far as Elliot knew, there were only scattered remnants of people in Central and Southern Africa.
Last to go was society, as the economy continued to worsen, people began to lose hope. Then the food began to run out there as well, this proved to be the breaking point. In the United States and Europe, Governments were forced to become pseudo-democracies, with the real power and services resting in the hands of the extremely rich. In other places, either the government scaled back the reforms and returned to a past of totalitarianism, as with China, or a revolution erupted, bringing into power those who promised to improve things, but in fact just wanted power for themselves. Thus establishing a new Totalitarian system in place of the old one, this is what happened to Russia.
When the Russian Federation died and the Russian Socialist Federative Republic (RSFR) appeared, in effect a new Soviet Union, the world began to polarize once again. The world was divided into three power blocks now: the American-Europe Block, the Russo-Chinese Block, and the Indian-South American Block. Then the three-way nuke war between Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia broke out. With the destruction of the Middle East, oil prices reached dramatic new heights. Attention turned to the final location of large-scale untapped oil wells: Central Asia.
As the world polarized, an arms race broke out… first triggered by the American deployment of a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile defense system, which was responded to by Russia upgrading its ABM force to a true, nation-covering one and India developed it’s own. Nuclear arsenals, found now useless in strategic bombardment, were retooled for tactical use. Thus, the decades-old doctrine of MAD died.
And with that, armies were built up again, the nations ignoring the economic costs and preparing to fight it out over the last drops of oh-so-vital-oil. Many in the first decade had questioned how a war could be fought over oil if the machines that fought it used the resource they fought over. But they did not realize what was summed up in a bitter joke: ‘The last drops of oil will be burned in a tank’. In other words, the military would get all the resources it needed… fuel included.
James was the lucky one. The son of a now-deceased senator, he had inherited a multi-million dollar business, which was now bankrupt, and campaigned on a platform of hope. That was in 2012, when things were bad but the Middle Eastern nuclear war had not pushed the economy over the edge.
The powder keg that initiated World War 3 was, of course, Central Asia. Specifically the nation of Turkmenistan, initially a Russian-Chinese puppet, had undergone a coup, its oil wealth switching to American-European hands. Unfortunately, the deposed Turkmen Government had the evidence that the coup was sponsored by the United States. Thus, the Chinese and Russians had launched a full-scale invasion.
Fighting quickly spread. The Chinese, in coordination with the Russian Pacific Fleet, had launched a full-scale invasion of Taiwan in the second month of the war. That invasion was repulsed, but the US Navy had suffered serious losses. Even worse, the Russian’s occupied the Baltic States (Belarus and Russia had reunified in 2010) and mostly cut-off Ukraine from the rest of Europe. Then they tried to hammer their way through Poland, towards Berlin.
Casualties were enormous on both sides (the lethality of modern weapons was amazing), but by August, they had reached Warsaw, where the advance was stalled by a series of European tactical nukes. From there, the war had pretty much stalemated for the past month… except in Korea.
Myer’s refused to pick up the newspaper, and instead went straight to the Intel Reports. The first one, he saw with a grimace, was from the FBI on the riots… over 30,000 were dead in the US. James looked at the report blankly, without any emotion, and put it to the side.
He picked up the next report, a war one. Casualties yesterday: a little under ten thousand in Eastern Europe. 25,000 Americans had surrendered (or were killed) in Korea, he noted dully. Probably being forced march to POW camps right now. Then came Central Asia, 5,800 men and women had died in battle. The report also showed equipment losses, territory lost/gained, even munitions expended.
Myer’s just put it aside instead of expressing regret or outrage. He had some questions for the Join Chiefs later about it. He had to distance himself, to treat the reports as pieces of paper, as distant statistics, not the number of real, actual people who had died recently. Otherwise, he would go insane.
The next report, interestingly enough, was from his science adviser. That was odd; usually the adviser’s reports were fifth in the list, after the Department of Treasury and Department of Energy. They would always be about the development of alternative energies… which usually did not contain good news. This time it was… strange news. He caught the basic gist of it, but shook his head at the absurdity of the idea presented by the memo.
‘Alternate Universes? Someone must have had a really genius insight. It might have been even something we can exploit…’ Myer’s thought, ‘If it were not for the fact we are fighting a world war!’ He snorted, ‘The whole idea is preposterous, anyways. Travelling to another universe requiring so little energy? HA!’
He made a mental note to berate his Science Advisor later and placed the memo to the side.
Moscow, September 14th, 2016
General Secretary Basvorov Kerchutovich Narmonov studied the face of the head of the Moscow Academy of Science very closely. He was waiting, waiting for the man to slip, to give Narmonov an excuse to liquidate him.
“Comrade Professor…” He finally said, “This… discovery is interesting, but what does it mean?”
Professor Sergei Mikhailovich Suvorov was nervous, and rightfully so. Some people who come into this office, which had been previously used by men such as Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev, were known to have been dragged out and shot for saying the wrong thing.
“What it means, Comrade,” Suvorov said, trying to suppress his fear. “Is that we essentially can construct a device which, with an insignificant amount of electricity, allows us too move in between Universes. We could hypothetically send anything through this machine…”
That got the General Secretary’s attention, Suvorov noted, the gears were turning in his head already.
“So… have you tested the theory?” Was the first question.
“Why, yes. We actually managed to build a prototype machine and send through a sensor pod to one particular Universe and then retrieve it.”
Before Narmonov could say: “Aaaaannnnnnndddddd?” Suvorov continued.
“It is completely habitable; the atmosphere is identical to ours. We have kept that Universes… well, I guess ‘coordinates’ would be the best word for it, in mind for the future.”
“Indeed…” Narmonov murmured. The gears in his head continued to spin round and round. Then, they clicked together. “Thank you for your time, Professor.”
That was an unmistakable dismissal, and so, Suvorov nodded and left the room. Narmonov looked over the paper, he could only understand one word in five, the science was obviously very complex, but he had already gotten the gist of it. Without hesitation, he lifted a phone to his ear.
“Get me the President of the Peoples Republic!”
End Chapter…
Now for this fic, I am doing something special… you get a chance to insert your own character in here. This will be especially useful with all none-English characters, as I SUCK at foreign names. At the end of every chapter, I will post the type of characters needed. You can then PM me your character and see if he/she makes it in the next chapter. Some characters will be used throughout the story, some will be killed off, and some will be just one note character, it depends. The forms for the characters will be left up here at the front page. Anyhow, here are the forms:
Human Soldiers/Officers*:
Name:
Description:
Rank:
Human Red Cross Personnel#:
Name:
Description:
Gender^:
Job: (Doctor/Nurse/Messenger)
Keidran/Basitian Soldiers/Officers:
Name:
Description:
Rank:
Magic: (Yes/No)
Keidran/Basitian Civilians:
Name:
Description:
Job:
Gender^:
Magic: (Yes/No)
*Human Soldiers are from the four major powers (Russia, USA, Europe, and China). Please use a name that fits the nation your soldier is from.
#Red Cross Personnel are almost certainly going to be one-note characters and will primarily appear later.
^Gender is only given too Civilians and Red Cross Personnel, all Soldiers/Officers are male. This might change when the Euro-American Armies show-up, but for now it stays…
What I need for the next chapter:
Russian Soldiers
A few Russian Junior Officers(IE: rank of Major or below)
ONE Russian General*
ONE Chinese General*
A bunch of Keidran Civilians
*To be deleted as slot is filled in.
|
Login
FAQ
Search
