Point of Divergence 3.0 : The Return of Madness (IC)

[Democratic East-Asia]

Point of Divergence V 3.0 : The Return to Madness
An alternate history ISOT RP by Democratic East-Asia


“If there’s a zeppelin, it’s alternate history. If there’s a rocketship, it’s science fiction. If there are swords and/or horses, it’s fantasy. A book with swords and horses in it can be turned into science fiction by adding a rocketship to the mix. If a book has a rocketship in it, the only thing that can turn it back into fantasy is the Holy Grail.”
-Debra Doyle

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OOC (HERE) | IC (HERE) | Our Discord server! (planning)
Moderation: Greater Redosia and Democratic East-Asia

[Democratic East-Asia]

Kaiser Wilhelm Secondary School, Germania, January 1st, Year 0

It was just another school day for the adolescents of Europa, many of whom wished they got January 1st off (evidently some changes in scheduling meant the former holiday was voided this year, for whatever reasons). Naturally, nobody wanted to be at the academic hell their parents called "school": why couldn't the administration be a bit more lenient and give the kids a day off?

Nevertheless, classes would continue as usual. Claudia Storch, a young twenty-something year old teacher, took a moment to examine the class in front of her. It was a (relatively) organized group of typical 1st-rate German youth: the sort that you'd see in the old propaganda posters of the 20th century. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was renowned for its strict admissions process (determined by a combination of test scores, recommendations, and genetic purity scores) after all. The students here were amongst the best in the kingdom (of Prussia), and were expected to behave accordingly. Claudia found it rather disappointing to see that over half of the class was visibly annoyed by their circumstances.

Storch decided to ignore that. They'd cheer up soon enough, so it was best get down to business.

"Alright class, turn on your computers and open slide 47 of last week's presentation. We'll continue from where we left off on the Pacification of the Congo."

There were a few groans and eye rolls at the mention of "presentations". It seemed no matter where you went in the world, powerpoints were universally despised. After the last few students had opened the slides (as indicated by Storch's own computer), she began with a quick question.

"Does anyone remember the justifications for the army's pacification of the North Congolese tribes? We went over this last week, so it should all be fresh on your minds."

Numerous indicators lit up on Storch's computer (hand raising was deemed inefficient). Scrolling through the list of students, she chose one Selina von Holzer. Noble lineage, Class A genetics, and attractive in appearance. Holzer was bound to give a satisfactory answer.

“Prior to the pacification campaigns, the northern tribes of Congo had shown significant resistance to both Imperial efforts in industrializing the region and improving infrastructure. The Mongo made it clear to the Empire that unlike many of their submissive cousins, they would actively oppose the flow of history and progress. A combination of low productivity and the display of degenerate traits and practices only made the army’s decision ever more clear. The Mongo and their allied tribes had to go. There was simply no alternative,” Selina replied confidently.

“I’d like to add on to that,” A voice from the further end of the class could be heard.

“Hmmm?” Storch checked her electronic listing of students. It was one Walter Marx (no relation to Karl Marx, evidently): Class A- genetics, commoner background. Also evidently a renowned troublemaker… great.

“Yes, it is commonly believed by people of the Empire that our pacification of the Congo was indeed justified. Of course, I’d like to propose a counterpoint: that which states the pacification of the Congo as nothing more than an act of genocide. The people in those regions were subject to extreme cruelty out of no other reason than our country’s bias against Africans and hatred of those we see as below ourselves-”

“Walter, I know you don’t want to be here today, but this isn’t the time for you to be spouting Beutelist nonsense, even if you’re joking,” Ms. Storch sighed. “You realize doing so is against the law, right?”

“Ahhh come on! Today’s supposed to be our day off and you’re here talking about the law? Plus, it’s always good to have some views from the opposing end,” Walter joked.

“Ms. Storch can you get Walter to shut up?” Selina complained. “This is like the 10th time he’s done this!”

“You could’ve worded that in a more proper manner… but you are right,” Ms. Storch turned towards Walter and scowled. “Anymore nonsense and I’ll have to report you to the disciplinary officer.”

“Seriously?” Walter sighed. “Man I just wanted to shake things up a bit! It gets mighty stifling in this environment and we could really use some change!” He announced just as the sky outside flashed a bright purple and began to change colors.

“Umm, what’s going on?” Ms. Storch asked wide eyed.

“What do you mean? I was just- oh,” Walter was about to explain before he turned his head towards the windows. It was as if the entire goddamn sky had become a maelstrom of colors… and then it was back to normal in just a few seconds.

ATTENTION all Students: This is the principle of the school speaking. At this very moment, school has been declared CANCELLED today due to unforeseen circumstances. I repeat: school is CANCELLED. Please pack your bags immediately and head out.

“What’s going on?” “Wait why are we leaving?” “Was there a terrorist attack?” The students wondered amongst themselves.

“Everyone pack your materials and get moving!” Ms. Storch commanded. “Your questions will be answered later,” She finished as the class lined up and exited the room. “You, Walter, come with me.”

“Goddamnit.”
-------

IBC HQ, Lemberg, Upper Galicia - Jan 1st, Year 0

“Alright is everything set up?!” A well-built news anchor rushed to his chair and straightened his tie. These past few minutes had probably been the most stressful but also the most exciting of his life.

“Everything’s good to go, John. We can start recording now.”

“Good, alright. Set the countdown.”

“3...2...1… ACTION!”
…

“Good morning fellow Europans, this is John Lechner reporting live from Lemberg. As I believe many of our fellow viewers have noticed, something inexplicable has happened within the past 15 minutes, and everyone ranging from you to myself is at a loss.”

John shifted to a more serious expression. “In light of the recent events, our government has temporarily declared a state of emergency. The Emperor himself urges civilians to stay indoors and to avoid public places while military units across the state have been mobilized. Stock markets have temporarily been shut down, as have other major financial institutions.”

“Of course,” John’s face loosened a bit. “May we have confidence in the abilities of our Empire during these pressing times! While this new world we find ourselves in may stretch our ability to adapt and progress, Europa has always proved its superiority and will continue to do so. Now, in a return to normality we shall move onto the daily news…”

Outside the large IBC HQ, which towered over many of the other skyscrapers in its tiered-district, dozens of tanks and knightmare frames could be seen taking to the largely empty streets. The military prepared for emergency deployment while the city’s defense grid was put online. The entire country had been put on maximum alert after the event had passed, especially when reports came in that numerous Imperial territories had suddenly disappeared… and were replaced with foreign lands. Lemberg, nestled hundreds of km behind the Empire’s peripheral territories, was likely safe thanks to its extensive defense network and relatively large military presence. Areas further out… possibly not so much.

-------
Eastern Ruthenia, 20 km from the (new) Russian Border - Jan 1st, Year 0

Private Janick Schumann was freezing his ass off. Like hell he was expecting to be teleported to Ukraine out of all places… in the middle of the winter at that! God wasn’t cruel to the point where Schumann would be wearing his shorts… but the standard Imperial BDU didn’t help all too much either.

Huddled in his small foxhole (which had evidently been teleported along) with two of his comrades, Schumann relied on a single small scrabidium-heater to keep himself from freezing any further. One of the soldiers (Johann) kept watch while Karina was busy talking to a tank driver at a nearby Wespe.

“Ahhh fuck, I won’t be able to feel my hands at this rate…” Janick cursed as he aggressively rubbed his hands to generate friction. “How are y’all doing?”

“Fine, just fine,” Johann replied half-heartedly, evidently too concentrated at staring at whatever laid ahead of him beyond the “cut off line” (where the ISOT stopped). For whatever reasons Johann had part of his extra white t-shirt covering his BDU... maybe as some sorta “ghetto” camouflage? It was definitely better than the totally out of place green camo everyone else was wearing, though Johann doubted it would be of much real use.

The nearby squad of Wespes appeared to be at ready, well, as ready as a group of tanks sitting out in the middle of nowhere could be. Some were conveniently located under a nearby treeline, not that Johann really cared. The point was, why were they all here?

…


Hannover Imperial Palace, Kingdom of Hannover - Jan 1st, Year 0

Above the tiered city of Hannover stood the Palace of the Royal Family, a modern splendor that completed the skyline below. Built out of some unexplainable mix of space-age concrete, carbon-steel, and other overly complex materials, it was as functional as it was aesthetic. A testament to both the Empire’s wealth and technological achievement, one could say.

“Well look who’s here!” A young, blond haired girl smiled as a single car pulled up to the palace’s entrance. Dozens of elite 6th gen (and some 7th gen) knightmare frames stood on guard nearby, their lances raised as the limousine in question entered palace grounds. A servant rushed over to open the car’s door, and out appeared none other than the Empire’s 2nd Princess, one Euphemia of Hannover.

“Oh… Victoria! I didn’t expect to see you here!” Euphemia exclaimed, visibly surprised. “I thought you were back at the Imperial capital.”

“That dreary modernist hell is no place for a royal like me!” Victoria declared. “Plus, the scenery and atmosphere back here in Hannover is just so much better!”

“Well there’s Britannia for you,” Euphemia smiled before following Victoria inside. “The closest you can get to Britannia over here on the mainland anyways.”

“But of course,” Victoria took the lead as the pair passed a number of royal guards, all of whom kneeled in the presence of the two royals. “One day we’ll be back in the real Britannia, though until then this’ll have to do…” the young princess (?) shrugged as she walked into one of the palace’s dining halls. It wasn’t the largest space, built specifically to accommodate just a few guests, but there were only supposed to be a few guests today.

“Oh!” Euphemia exclaimed after entering, having spotted a familiar face. “Mr. Frahm, what are you doing here?”

The middle aged man she faced responded with a hearty smile. “Oh Euphemia! I just happened to be visiting the city right as the ‘event’ happened, and Victoria here was kind enough to let me stay in the Palace to ride the chaos out.”

“It also seemed you could use a few refreshers for your political science classes,” Victoria added. “Mr. Frahm here’s probably the best expert in that field, at least.”

“Oh, well thank you very much Victoria!” Euphemia exclaimed. “And you too, Mr. Frahm.”

“Ahh don’t sweat it! As 2nd in line to the throne I believe you deserve the best of the best, Euphemia,” Frahm chuckled.

“Anyways, the refreshments are here!” Victoria watched eagerly as a number of servants brought in multiple plates of pastries, snacks, and some drinks. Everything present was prepared by the Palace’s own private chefs using top notch ingredients sourced from across the Empire: the sort of stuff you’d see inside Michelin star restaurants. Frahm was about to smile, but realized the implications of this rather quickly. A state of emergency had just recently been announced, so it was likely that food prices would probably increase in the near future. Eating like this would be inadvisable. Nevertheless, might as well not waste what was in front of him.

“The chefs of the royal family never fail to impress,” Frahm noted after taking a bite into a piece of Kaiserschmarrn. “Sometimes I wish my position came with a few personal chefs!”

“I could easily arrange for that if you simply asked~” Victoria glanced at Euphemia, who nodded her head as well. “It would only be fitting after all that the Empire’s Prime Minister be treated on a level equal to us, wouldn’t it?”

“You flatter me with those words. Though if anything it seems I’ll have to cut down on my consumption in these following months. Europa’s about to enter some hard times,” Frahm noted quite realistically.

“Will it really be that bad?” Euphie asked out of genuine concern.

“Well it certainly won’t be easy,” Frahm replied. “Nevertheless, I strongly believe that the Empire will overcome all adversity. Like hell I’m letting this nation fall apart.”

“I’m holding you to those words, Frahm,” Victoria quipped before turning to a servant. “I’d like some more tea if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, your maje- oh hell no!” The servant in question exclaimed after his hands slipped off the tray he’d been carrying, spilling tea all over Victoria’s dress. Victoria stood still in shock, quivering as she took a moment to grasp the enormity of the mistake which had just occurred, before slowly rising from her chair.

“You idiot! How the hell could you screw up something so simple?!” She slapped the servant, who fell over in shock, and proceeded to scream at him. “I’ll have you know that mistakes such as THAT are NOT tolerated in this palace! Clean it up immediately you imbecile!” She finished before storming off. “This dress cost me over 50,000 Euros!”

The commotion attracted the attention of a few nearby royal guards, who inquired into what was going on. Victoria simply pointed to the servant in question and left in a hurry. Two of the guards decided it was a good time to make themselves useful.

“So what do we have here?” One of the guards smirked as he approached the servant in question, who was still busily trying to clean up the mess he’d created on the floor. “Walter Radnitz, B-grade genetic score, signs of potential mental disorders…” the first guard scoffed as he pulled up Walter’s ID.

“Wait, what do you mean?” Walter, who was still on his knees, glanced towards the guard.

“A fucking inferior that’s what,” The 2nd guard walked over and kicked Walter in the gut, causing him to recoil in pain. “God, who the hell thought it would be a good idea to hire someone who only scored a B?! I swear every goddamn B-grade I’ve seen in these parts is only one step above those animals in the colonies!”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Get up and finish cleaning!” The first guard grabbed Walter by the collar and threw him back to his prior spot. “You’ll be lucky if the princess simply docks your pay, though I wouldn’t mind seeing someone like you receiving the boot! There are so many other good Europans who’d die for a job like yours.”

“Yes… yes sir,” Walter tried mentally steeling himself before quickly getting back to work. Frahm cringed while Euphemia hid behind her chair out of fear.

“Was that really necessary?” Frahm frowned as he addressed the guards. “Beating up the poor kid and insulting him like that? And you had to do it in front of the 2nd princess as well?”

“It’s necessary to enforce discipline and keep people in their proper places!” The first guard replied after quickly tidying himself.

“Well of course,” the 2nd guard followed up.”That kid’s been here for months already, and he keeps screwing up in such stupid ways. I find it an insult that he serves the same individuals as we do.”

“I guess that’s good to hear,” Frahm sighed. “Only confirms that I’d never hire either of you. Now move along before I find an excuse to take further action. If I see that again I’ll have both of you demoted to the infantry.”

The two guards groaned and made themselves scarce.

“Are you alright Walter?” Euphemia leaned down and helped the servant to his feet. “I never knew those two would treat you like that!”

“It’s normal over here,” Walter sighed.

Frahm shook his head before taking a moment to stare through the massive glass windows that covered half of the room. It was a beautiful view, one showcased the full splendor of the city below. If only everyone had the opportunity to experience this. In the meantime there was a lot of work to do.

----

[Greater Redosia]

45th FUSA Infantry Battalion, Indiana
Right after Event


“What the hell was that light! Jeffrey I swear to god if you threw another god damn flashbang!” The Sergeant got up and looked around the camp, seeing Jeffrey rubbing his eyes on the guard tower and not looking really confused. Deciding he needed a drink, he walked over to the supply tent that was near the coast, thankfully the area was clear of mirelurks when they came in. But it wasn’t some stray mirelurk that made the sergeant look at the water, it wasn’t a deathclaw ready to eat him alive or some ghouls who wandered in. He was staring at the water itself.

“My god...Everyone get over here now!!” He yelled it in the air and over the radio, running over to the water he looked at the clear blue water, not green and thick but crisp and see through. Looking out he saw this was the same for as far as his eyes could see.

45th FUSA Infantry Battalion, Indiana
One hour after the event

Falling to his knees he let his pants get soaked in the water, the quartermaster coming out with a geiger counter, waving it near the water and even once shoving it into the water. Pulling it back he laughed as he showed it to everyone.

“It’s clean! It’s all clean!!!”

“My god….this means it must be clean everywhere….It….I cannot just be clean here, that wouldn’t make sense if it was. Just a bright flash then boom, clean water! Quick! Gear up! I’ll get my commanding officer on the line! Let's move! Let’s move!”

With orders being given to pack up, a message was sent to the local Major of the area and that was sent up to the Colonel. Without a chance to send it up higher, the Colonel ordered five battalions to march along the coast and secure several points to ensure that the water was under their control. Another eight battalions were ordered to support the hold and the 101st Screaming Eagles along with two mercs were sent to take over the Michigan Peninsula and the coast of Minnisota by Vertibird.

It seems the world is now changing for the people of FUSA.

Robco Facility, Richmond Virgina
Five hours after the event

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck,fuck,fuck and fuck!”

The ghoul was working around the clock, picking up the phone and hearing nothing from the other end and slamming it down, rubbing his melted face with his hands. Smashes his coffee cup when he burned himself from taking a sip and throwing everything excluding his personal terminal off the desk. He worked at this place and became the head of this branch of Robco for almost 200 years and he was having no problems when he came back as a full employee, but now that HQ is no longer responding he didn’t know what the fuck to do.

Even worse was now his rival walked him, old pre-war suit and that gay smile on his face showing his white teeth. Walking up to the ghoul he placed his hand on the desk.

“So home nest still ain’t respondin’? You’d think they say something about that flash that happened.”

The ghoul groaned in annoyance, “Look. All I know is that I was sent something from this facility and I have no idea if I should activate it or not.” This raised an eyebrow from the fancily dressed human and that smile turned into a smirk as he threw himself on the desk and laid on it sideways as he opened the terminal. This caused the ghoul to throw as fit as he tried to reach over him, “You sonofabitch I swear I’ll kill you!!”

But it was too late, he activated the program and the building shuttered slightly. Looking around, the back wall of the office opened and showed a huge screen that turned on. The face of a beautiful young woman took charge with a non-moving smile.

“Thank you for activating the Robco mandated Automatic-Management-Arrangement-Neural-Determine-Acquisition System. You may call me Amanda~ Now that it seems Mr. House has kicked the bucket, I can finally get this company to shine like it was supposed to. Even after 173 years of your failure~”

The two looked at each other, wondering what the hell they just unleashed upon the world.

Emergency Council Room, Washington D.C
One day after the event

“Mr. Chairman, from our reports, our soldiers are already marching into the wasteland of Chicago and around it to take the coasts, from early reports it seems the Brotherhood of Steel is completely gone and now all the lands are filled with raiders and other bandits. Our mercenaries alongside the Screaming Eagles have deployed by Vertibird to take the remaining coastline of the Great Lakes...and... It’s all clean sir, the water.”

The power armored figure sitting in the chair had his finger interlock, staring down at the old holographic map that was moved from the Pentagon to this emergency meeting room. It showed every major city within FUSA and military bases under their control, sadly it was also supposed to show the Royal Canadian Commonwealth. But their transmissions have suddenly ended, the Reavers of Iowa and Missouri hold no more but scouts state that some flag of black, white and red now flies over the river. Including the former High Church of Texas. This new power suddenly came out of nowhere, after this...flash. Their lands are bright and lush with life.

“What other reports can you give to me…” Spoke the Chairman, his voice modulated due to the T-51b power armor.

“Well…” The Speaker of the House waited for a moment, to wonder how to word it, “It seems the animals ranging from giant ants to mighty deathclaws have been seen crossing the border into the lands of this...strange nation. Their lands aren’t irradiated and clean, as far as we know those animals that move are going to thrive. Ants will dig new tunnels in the soft dirt and become almost untouchable, enough food to let them have hundreds of numbers. Deathclaws….we don’t even want to know how much they will grow, seeing Matriarchs and Alphas march across the border with children in tow.

“What I suggest, is making a national announcement on the radio and on television to inform the people what has happened. Perhaps with enough strength someone else might hear it too. It’s our only chance.”

The Chairman looked down, sighing and standing up. Saluting he gave a nod. “Then make it so.”

---

Citizens of the United States of America. We have come to know that our nation...has been changed heavily. We have lost contact with our allies of the Royal Canadian Commonwealth, their rulership seeming to be no more. We are hoping that whatever the great flash was, that it did not remove them from existing as so many other nations have had to suffer before. We are doing what we can and we hope those of the RCC within our lands may be patient with us before attempting to return home.

But another thing we must look towards is the west, the unknown giant of a nation that has taken away several of our allies, the Reavers of Iowa and Missouri, the Free Merchants Republic of Kansas and the High Church of Texas. All of them are now gone, replaced by something unknown. Worry not my fellow Americans, whoever they are they will not take over our nation.

The army is on watch always and the new air force is a match to no other in this wasteland, the navy will keep our waters clear with the FUSN North Carolina at her best.

But in the end I call to you, the people, to keep yourself safe. Ready your weapons just in case and ready to muster your bravery. Perhaps whoever we find will be friendly when they come, whoever we find will support us. But if they come to fight us? Then we shall fight forevermore. We survived the Great War of 2077, the Civil War of 2245 and the invasion of the Zombies in 2247 to 2248.

We will prevail! God bless the USA and God Bless all of you.

[Mirial System]

Bridge, Republic Navy Venator-class Star Destroyer Twilight

Admiral Yularen opened his eyes, and took stock of the situation.

He was... on the floor. A quick glance identified his surroundings as the bridge of his flagship, the Twilight. Flagship of Strike Group Two, bound of Anaxes to reinforce the ongoing war effort. The compartment was flooded with red emergency lights... but the main lights were on. Power had remained up, that is good.

His entire body hurts - but not badly enough to suggest severe injury. Whatever happened, the deflector shields must have absorbed part of the energy.

Pushing himself off the floor, he grabbed the nearby console for support. A trickle of blood rolled down his forehead, caught by his eyebrow before it hit his right eye. His throbbing headache did not suggest anything serious - probably a surface wound. He reminded himself to get it checked out by one of the medics, later.

Peering out of the massive viewport of the bridge, situated on towering fins that overlooked the Venator-class Star Destroyer, Yularen was met with...

"... sand. What the-"

Beside him, General Skywalker sighed - his disappointment immeasurable and his day ruined...

Command Deck, Negotiator

With his signature faint smile, Obi-Wan waited patiently as the commanders of the now downed task force reported to the debriefing meeting. Resolutely ignoring the annoying bacta patch plastered to his left temple - 'twas just a flesh wound, certainly not reason for Commander Cody to drag him off to the medics...

One by one, they appeared around the holotable.

Dooku, with Clone Commander Reno, the former being supported by the latter as he limped into view; Anakin, with Ahsoka and Captain Rex in tow, looking none the worse for wear and muttering something about cursed airborne silica particles - Admiral Yularen joining shortly after sporting his own bacta patch; Luminara, faintly smug and appearing completely untouched by the crash, followed by her ex-padawan Barriss (Kenobi took a moment to remind himself that the younger Mirialan had in fact been knighted, a mere week prior) and Commander Gree.

The captains of the other starships, and Commander Jet of the Flame Trooper Corps, soon joined in to complete the circle.

Skywalker was the first to speak, blurting out what was at the forefront of everyone's thoughts. "What the kriff happened?"

"... language, Anakin."

That gave the brash Knight pause. "... still, why are we half-buried in sand?"

"If I may?" Yularen's calm baritone cut in. "According to the Twilight's engineering readouts, it was a catastrophic hyperdrive failure - blew out right under us while we were in hyperspace. Care to confirm that, captains?" Affirmatives were sounded off around the conference by the Navy officers, each one reporting similar reports.

"Curious..." Dooku muttered, frowning. "Yet somehow we survived. When can we get a damage report - I suppose a casualty count would be helpful as well..."

"Already done, sir." Cody replied, compiling the scattered reports from various commanders before distributing it out to the meeting participants.

Miraculously, nobody died. Most clone troopers even came out of it unscathed due to their armour, with injured personnel mostly suffering minor wounds. Dooku himself had the most severe injury, a simple lower limb fracture. With regards to the fleet, the situation was far more dire - all ships had their engines and hyperdrives blown (with engine components littering the surrounding desert and providing a path for their crash). Shields had burned out from the impact, although repairable given parts and time. Surprisingly, the rest of the facilities and assets survived - some minor repairs needed on a handful of unsecured starfighters and some scratched paint on the AT-TEs.

"I'll send Barriss over to the Contender and have her take a look at your leg, Master Dooku." Luminara's offer was accepted with a nod from the elderly Serennian.

"Much appreciated. So, High Jedi General Kenobi... what is the plan now?" Almost smirking, Dooku glanced pointedly at Obi-Wan. Reminding all present that, as commanding officer of the Third Systems Army, his grand-padawan was technically ranking officer present. While at the same time thanking the Force that he had dodged that particular responsibility.

Obi-Wan bit down a curse. "Fine. Let's see..."

Starboard Docking Port, Tranquility

The docking port, once only used for resupply and transfers, had became a hive of activity. Packs of BARC speeders flew out, seeking out the Acclamators and other ships of the task force. AT-RTs, sprinting on two mechanical legs, led patrols out into the surrounding area. AT-TEs stepped along after, packed with troops and tasked with securing a perimeter around the downed Venator.

And clone troopers, milling around while awaiting orders, or marching off with purpose.

Standing by the closing turbolift doors, a young Jedi Knight took in the scene of orderly chaos. And with no little trepidation, swept through the current of men and materiel to approach the edge of the opening bridging the ship's interior with this unknown world they're now in.

She hadn't been on the bridge when the crash happened. Hadn't had time to peer out before the debriefing. But she knew, both from the meeting's discussions and her own Force senses, that the Tranquility had crashed - more plowed her way through - one of the worst areas one could crash on a planet.

Through a city.

Trembling silently, she reached the edge of the docking port. Ignoring how a squad from Green Company watched her from on-board the LAAT hovering to one side of the docking port, clearly waiting to escort her to Master Dooku's flagship. As the desert breeze swept past her, Barriss Offee peered outwards.

And her breath hitched, as a scene of utter devastation looked back at her. People - humans, as far as she could tell - looked on from the barely intact buildings towards the trench carved upon the surface of this world by the Venator-class Star Destroyer. Rubbled paved the earthened scar beneath her - rubble that still contained faint signs of life, fizzling away as pain rippled through the Force. One after another after another...

Stumbling back, the young Mirialan barely held back a sob.

'We... we did this...'

Hard unyielding plastoid bumped into her shoulder, interrupting her downward-spiralling thoughts. Taking a moment to collect herself, masking her grief behind the fascade of clinical calm, she turned to find Gree looking at her. Studying her.

Did she leave a trace? Had the clone commander saw her breakdown-

"Commander Offee, the Contender awaits your arrival." He gestured to the awaiting gunship.

"Thank you." With a nod of acknowledgement, Barriss turned and made her way to the LAAT - stepping on silently before the pilot pulled away and made for a southeasterly course.

Commander Gree watched as the young Jedi he had fought alongside throughout this war depart, a frown coming to rest upon his face. Footsteps came to a halt behind him and he turned his attention from the speck in the sky towards the rest of the 41st.

"Search the rubble, bring back anyone you find. I want both survivors and corpses, although if they wish to leave, let them. Medics, set up shop here, start triage - treat what you can, stabilise those you can't and wait for the Commander to return. She can manage them. No bacta tanks are cleared for use yet, but I'll talk to the General about it.

"Let's fix what we broke, men."

As one, the clone troopers before him saluted. "Yessir!"

[The Alpenbund]

Cross-post with Ghandi [Europa]

Ruins of St. Margarethen border crossing, former canton St. Gallen. Around 4 AM local time.

Reto Raustein leaned on the improvised railing of the tiny outpost’s outer wall, staring into the misty night and looking out for anything unusual. Or, well, at least he tried to. The mist that had blanketed the area since the evening made it nearly impossible to see very far, with even his visor’s Combined Sensors mode struggling to break through it. He kicked a pebble at the corpse of a necrotic he’d shot earlier that day, and leaned against the wall.

The outpost really was a small one, crewed by only one squad of six. Outposts such as this were meant to keep tabs on exogen populations in the area, and undertake measures to keep them controlled. Most soldiers at these posts were part of Wildlife Control, but not Reto and his squadmates. After all, this was - technically - the border between the Union and the areas of the Earth at least nominally controlled by the Combine Overwatch.

For a moment, Reto perked up. He thought he’d heard a voice, far off over the border ditch (or rather, the border dump as it was called by mostly everyone, owing to the fact that it was full of waste and junk). After a few seconds of hearing little to nothing though, he told himself he’d only imagined it. ‘Must’ve been the wind.’, he thought, and slightly chuckled at the old video game reference.

Sometime later.

The town of Lustenau had historically been a rather sleepy principality: originally independent, it had been absorbed by the Hapsburg Dynasty back in the 17th century and had subsequently occupied the role of “small inland town” quite adequately indeed. Even by the modern day, Lustenau had barely changed in terms of aesthetic: much of the original old-style architecture was still present, even if there were a few modernist outcrops here and there.

By technicality, the district of Hochst wasn’t part of Lustenau, but for the sake of simplicity it might as well have been. After Switzerland had been absorbed after yet another expansionist war in the 1700s, Hochst was expanded to include the lands across the old river border, and was subsequently elevated to “town” status. Later on in history it was merged into the same administrative region as Lustenau, hence why many people didn’t bother differentiating the two.

Sgt. Erich Hoffman and his two comrades had just finished getting lunch at the nearby Chinese restaurant, and were in the mood for proper German beer (the Chinese shop oddly didn’t have any atm). There was a nice place across the river in St. Margrethen that Hoffman and the boys preferred, and it honestly wasn’t too far out. A five minute stroll for some good beer? Now that was a deal worth taking.

“Just another day off from work…” Hoffman said to himself as he walked along the sidewalk towards the one bridge which connected the two halves of the urban zone. “Shouldn’t be any compli- what now?” Hoffman paused for a second and looked towards the sky. The formerly clear sunny day had momentarily been replaced with a strange purple miasma… before going back to normal. For a second there, Hoffman thought he was drunk before realizing that he had in fact NOT had any beer today.

“Ahh whatever, it was probably no-THING AAAHHH!!” He screamed right as he crossed the “cut off line” formed by the ISOT and plummeted into the river below. The two soldiers he’d been walking with quickly called for help. That said, most people were simply too surprised to do anything. Across the cut off line, something inexplicable had happened.

Reto perked up again. This time, he’d definitely heard something. A scream, maybe, followed most definitely by a splash. He banged on the outpost’s door for the rest of the squad to get up, and radioed his squadmate Jacques Yvereau, who was on guard at the other end of the street.

“Groundhog 5-2 calling Groundhog 5-3. Disturbance near the demarcation line. Group up and move to investigate, over.”, he said in the clinical manner that was preferred to be used over the radio. The answer came quickly. “10-4. Be there ASAP.” Seconds later, he heard the steps of Jacques sprinting down the street, exiting the fog a few meters in front of him. “Let’s move.”

Weapons drawn, the two soldiers moved towards what was left of the old river. The bridge had been long gone, and the riverbank, which had been quite beautiful (according to pictures they’d found) 40 years ago, was laden with junk and rubble. The dirt had taken on an unhealthy yellow-ish coloration in most parts. Reto and Jacques climbed down to the riverbank, making their way through the scattered obstacles.

Something in the canal, Jacques remarked via hand signals. Reto nodded an affirmative, he could hear it moving too. Suddenly, several human voices cut through the fog. The two men looked at each other for a second. If there was someone in the canal, they’d have to move fast - although the poor bastard was probably dead either way, given how polluted the whole thing was. Sprinting towards the source of the noise, they saw the silhouette of a man pulling himself onto dry land.

Not wanting to stand by idly, Reto grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him onto the shore, while Jacques looked around. However, he stopped dead in his tracks. Had the water always been this clean? It was almost transparent. Even more, the patch of grass under his foot was… green? He could now hear the voices even more clearly, coming from the other side of the river, though who they were was still obscured by the thick fog, for some reason. Finally, he looked down at the man he’d pulled out of the river. His training came back to him after a moment, and he pulled the man to his feet. “Identify yourself!”

Erich briefly recoiled before getting a hold of himself. Just a second prior he’d fallen face first into the river, and now some robot (?) was asking him to identify himself? And what was with the surroundings? Everything looked so… dead.

“Ahhh shit…” Erich mumbled to himself before replying to the stranger. “Sgt. Erich Hoffman, Europan Imperial Army. I was just taking a stroll to get some beer and then this happens.”

Reto stared at the man for a second. ‘Imperial Army’? Had some rebel group taken to calling themselves that now? Looking at the man’s clothing, it was hardly something a rebel group could afford, much less keep as clean as this. “Hm.”, he said, which sounded more like a grunt than anything, and signaled to Jacques to alert the squad. “Groundhog 5-3 to Groundhog 5-Lead. Alert, recommend check all radials. Contact Code Cross-4. Over.”

He looked at the man again. “I’ve heard better stories, Sergeant. This is an illegal crossing. Are you part of a non-Overwatch polity?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Hoffman didn’t believe what he was hearing. “As far as I remember this town is part of Imperial Upper Swabia! And I have no idea as to what this ‘Overwatch’ you refer to is. Never heard of it. But yes, I guess by technicality I’m not part of this ‘Overwatch’.”

In the distance, further commotion could be heard as numerous civilians gathered near the border crossing. A few police cars could be seen (mostly to block the civilians) while a number of knightmare frames drove up to the now broken bridge.

Jacques looked over his shoulder. “Contaminants may have gotten to him. Combine used to dump bio-waste in here.” Reto looked the man over again. “Possible. Groundhog 5, report all radials clear?” The squad, swarming out from the outpost, responded with affirmatives for the most part. “Groundhog 5-2”, the squad leader radioed. “Radials clear. Activity across demarcation line detected. Fall back to safe location and stand by, over.”

Reto sighed and grabbed the sergeant by his arm. “We’re going to the sidewalk. Not safe here. Necrotics tend to show up from time to time.” “Viromes too.”, Jacques chimed in as they started moving towards their side of the border crossing.

“Of course, I guess I don’t have much other choice,” Hoffman followed the Swabian (?) as he walked away from the river. “Errr, what exactly are these ‘necrotics’ you mentioned? Hard to imagine there’s anything particularly dangerous around these parts to soldiers as well armed as you. Same with these ‘Viromes’. What are they?”

Hoffman was then interrupted (of course) by a loud crash and gunfire. It appeared one of the knightmare frames had decided to leap over the river for whatever reason, and ended up disturbing some of the local “wildlife”. Of course, said local wildlife was quickly turned into paste by the KMF’s 30mm short rifle. Must’ve been one of those 6th gen KMFs judging by how far it jumped, Koffman thought to himself.

“And… it appears some of my compatriots might’ve bumped into something,” Hoffman sighed. “Of course some cheeky pilot just had to get ahead of everyone else…”

Reto allowed himself an audible sigh. In the distance, the unmistakable groans of headcrab zombies and the screams of their parasites could be heard. “Groundhog 5-2, outbreak! Outbreak! Outbreak! Grid Niner dash One. Check all radials for swarm instances. Unknown vehicle over D-line, do not engage. Over.” He turned to the sergeant, gesturing for him to move faster. “Alone, no, they don’t pose a threat. It’s different when a few dozen are coming for you, though.”

Like clockwork, several necrotics suddenly rose from among the rubble - mostly comprised of zombified wildlife with the headcrab sticking to various parts of the body, although one was instantly recognizable as formerly human. The thing howled and moaned as if it was in immense pain, although it was absolved of this (along with the others) by Jacques’ and Reto’s pulse rifles. Just to be safe, they unloaded another few shots each into the headcrabs themselves.

“Oh Jesus Christ!” Hoffman instinctively jumped back as the zombified monsters attempted to attack him and the Swabians (?) around him. The Swabians, of course, made short work of the things with their odd looking assault rifles. Well, that was over rather quickly.

“So those are necrotics! Fitting name for how they look,” Hoffman shook his head out of disbelief. “Never thought goddamn zombies would be around here. How common even are those things?”

Reto halted in disbelief for a moment. Had this man never gone outside? The entire planet was infested, and even the Combine cities had some headcrab problems more often than not. “Bio-contaminants have been at large since the Mesa incident.”, he simply said, as they reached the sidewalk. There, some of the other squad members came into view, scanning for signs of other threats.

“Groundhog 5-Lead to 5-2.”, the voice of the squad leader came over Reto’s helmet communicator. “Overshield notified, expect Airshield assets in 5, callsign Sweeper 1 through 5. Radial scans lighting up, contact code: Contain. Three. Inoculate. Over.” Good news, he thought. The airshield would likely send a number of hunter helos and a Raven. He turned to Hoffmann, intending to ask some more questions.

“What are your vehicles doing? Union territory has been established since 3 A.I. [‘after invasion’].”

“What do you mean what are they doing?” Hoffman looked at Reto incredulously. “We’re simply scouting what used to be part of the Kingdom of Upper Swabia. I’m unfamiliar with the dating system you’ve presented me with, but I can assume you there is no ‘Union’ in this region. All lands in Europe were under the control of the Pan Europan Empire last time I checked.”

Jacques shook his head. “Told you the contaminants are getting to him. You never know what kind of biopharmotics the Overwatch dumps here.” Reto looked back and forth. “Are you feeling ill? Limbs going numb? Nausea or migraines?”

“What!? I’m fine, thank you very much. The water was perfectly clean, you should check for yourselves!” Hoffman shook his head.

It seemed that God (if he existed) finally decided to throw off the facade. The mist which formerly obscured the border began to lift… making it apparent just how massive the disparity between the two sides really was. On one hand, idyllic Austrian countryside, on another, a ruined toxic wasteland which used to be Upper Swabia. The various Imperials who’d gathered on their side of the new “border” took a few seconds to make some sense out of the situation.

“Huh…” Hoffman honestly didn’t have much else to say. This was… very awkward.

Reto and Jacques were silent for a moment, surveying the town on the other side. Then their views fell on the numerous knightmare frames still present at the other side of the bridge. “Groundhog 5-2, unknown vehicles at D-line, tag.”, Reto called in briefly, although the frames seemed to not have moved yet. The one that had jumped over could be seen standing among some of the rubble at the riverbank, examining the remains of some necrotics it had disposed of.

“Christ…”, Jacques started, almost gawking at the green grass on the other side, as well as the clean water in the river which had been an unhealthy green-brown just the day before. A bird suddenly landed on the sidewalk near them. “What’s that?”, Reto asked. “Databank says it’s a… ‘raven’?”

Suddenly, the sound of spinning rotor blades started growing louder, and a guttural sound emanated from the hill just beyond the ruins. “Speak of the god-damned devil.”, Jacques said as a number of helicopters and one dropship-type Raven became visible over the ridge. “Sweeper Lead to Groundhog 5.”, the unmistakable booming voice of the Raven officer came through their comms equipment. “Stat- and sitrep. Prep for area stabilization. Over.”

‘These sure were some strange people’, Hoffman thought to himself. He quickly disposed of the idea that they might’ve been Imperial scientists: no way in hell a scientist wouldn’t recognize a simple raven at first glance. No, these “Swabians” were a totally different story, most likely foreigners.

The Empire waited for no one: as soon as it became clear that the coast was largely clear, more KMFs began to ready themselves for rapid deployment as a few Imperial VTOL gunships from a nearby military base arrived. One of the various uniformed (and gas mask wearing) Imperial officers took out a loudspeaker and decided to make his intent clear.

“Attention unknown Swabians, this is commander Ralf Waldner speaking. We ask you to identify yourselves and explain what’s going on.”
The Imperial units already across the river began to move, albeit in a slow and not particularly threatening manner.

Groundhog 5’s squad leader hurried over to the outpost to grab a megaphone of his own when the officer stepped forward. The rest of the squad, along with the three squads dismounting from the dropship as it landed, hurried into defensive positions. Before the squad leader could make it back and respond, the Raven decided to talk instead - its translator having a built-in sound booster. Reto took a look at it, the blue and white stripes on its fins made its rank clear.

“This is Captain Ouen (the closest possible phonetic approximation of its actual name) of the Alpine Union’s Shield Forces speaking. We do not know what has occurred either, seeing as just last week we undertook a firebombing where you are standing due to a local biotic infestation. However, I would strongly advise to order your troops to stop moving. You are infringing on an established border of the Union.”

“Is that giant whale thing talking to us?” A nearby soldier pointed at the Raven in question (Captain Ouen). Waldner shrugged.

“Could honestly just be some sort of drone with a built-in receiver. I doubt it’s ACTUALLY alive. Anyways, we shouldn’t leave our counterparts waiting. Order all units to halt their advance!”

As quickly as they began moving, the Imperial KMFs came to a sudden halt. Waldner got back on the loudspeaker.

“Well, it seems we might have a conflict of interest given that these lands were recognized as Imperial. Nevertheless, I believe it would be best if I could speak in person with a higher ranking officer on your end to possibly clear up a few potential misunderstandings. That is all.”

The Raven made a motion with its head that could be interpreted as a nod. “We are notifying our high command as we speak. However, until the arrival of such a high-ranking officer, I am the highest rank present. You can be sure that I am receiving instructions directly from Airshield command.”

The Raven slowly lowered itself to a height where its ‘face’ could be visible, retracting some of its armor and revealing an airhole and two whale-like, but alert-looking eyes. “I am the commanding officer of 132 Multipurpose Tactical Squadron, of the Union’s Airshield, not some drone. Enhanced hearing is a useful trait, Commander.”

“What the hell was that?!” One of the Imperial soldiers present jumped back in alarm. “I mean damn, didn’t know the Swabians were sporting bioconstructs.”

“Well it seems like you were wrong, Trooper U-143,” Waldner sighed.

“Goddamnit.”

“Sorry for that, us Imperials have never seen one like yourself around these parts,” Waldner continued before turning to a soldier nearby. “Make sure one of those diplomatic information packs or something is available when I need it. Information transfer and whatnot.”

“Yes sir!”

“Anyways, with all that aside, I’ve come to the quick conclusion that whatever beyond the old border isn’t Imperial anymore. If I may ask, what exactly is this ‘Alpine Union’ you speak of? Last time I checked there was the Alps but no ‘Alpine Union’.”

The squad leader suddenly appeared beside the massive Raven with his megaphone. “Sir, if I may?” The Captain nodded and gained altitude again, to further speak with command without being heard. The squad leader then stepped forward.

“If the following term is better known to you, this region is called ‘Switzerland’, though the Union has abandoned that name in favor of its current one roughly 40 years ago. The Union and its predecessor have been in possession of this land for centuries. The last time we were bordered by something called the ‘Empire’ was more or less 110 years ago.

“As for the Empire, we don’t exactly know you, either. For the last 40 years most of Earth has - nominally at least - been under control of the Combine Overwatch and the planetary administration. We’ve never seen.. whatever those suits you have there are, either.”

Waldner frowned. This was far from ideal, as if these Swiss were from a completely different world than the one he was familiar with. “It appears we’re stuck in quite the predicament then. The old Holy Roman Empire, which predates the current Pan Europan Empire mind you, absorbed Switzerland back in the 1700 CEs… its been around two centuries since then. And you’re telling me the last ‘Empire’ recorded by your Switzerland ended over a century ago? Mind telling me, what year do you think it is right now? In CE terms since you probably don’t use our a.t.b system.”

“The year in CE? I assume you mean the pre-Invasion dating system then. That would make it… 2044, roughly. In other words, 40 After Invasion and 45 After Incident. Why, what year do you think it is right now?”, the squad leader responded, mildly confused.

“2044… what in the goddamn?” Waldner frankly didn’t know what to make of that. “Last time I checked, it was January 1st, 1967 CE over here. Or 2018 a.t.b if you’re one of those Britannians.”

“So… we’re dealing with a bunch of Swiss from the future?” A soldier asked. “Great.”

“1967? Britannian? I assume you haven’t had any run-ins with the Combine then? Or a catastrophic accident at a research complex in New Mexico, USA, for that matter?”

“Err, no for the run-ins with this ‘Combine’ and no for the accident in this USA you speak of. Britannia refers to anyone from the British Isles and well, the old Britannian Empire which ruled said islands before the damned Beutelists staged their revolution. The year by the way should be accurate: if you visit any place in the Empire you’ll find that exact year written on the calendars.”

“I think we should honestly just exchange digital information with them,” A nearby soldier quipped. “Saves time and makes my life easier.”

The squad leader was quiet for a second. “Well that is concerning… or not, actually.” The man shuffled a little awkwardly in his heavy gear while looking around. “Has your air always been this clear?”

“What sort of question is that?” Waldner chuckled. “After the first phase of the industrial revolution and our country’s transition to scrhabidium-based energy the air’s always been clean! Honestly, there’s really no reason for any of you to be wearing those masks of yours right now, if chemical pollutants are what you’re worried about. Of course, why would you be worried about chemical pollutants to begin with?”

The squad leader hesitated for a moment, then called one of the squad to him with an atmospherical test device. The small yellow box sucked in air, analyzing it, before lighting up green. Green? I’ve never seen it light up green before, the squad leader thought to himself. He hung the megaphone on his belt, slowly removing the front of his mask. “Well this is certainly new.”

After a few seconds of simply taking in the air, he put the mask back on, as was demanded by regulation, and took up the megaphone again. “We are used to much worse air quality. If you want to know why, please direct your view towards our side of the ditch.”, he said, pointing at a mountain of rubble, including a leaking barrel with a ‘biohazard’ sign printed on it. Near it, a number of Xen plants clung onto the concrete, emitting clouds of yellow gas every once in a while.

Waldner cringed as he saw the utter mess that was the swiss side of the border. Especially those plants: why the hell did they look like that? And that gas? It definitely was no good.

“Alright men, put your gas masks on just in case… and get the civilians off the streets goddamnit!” He yelled at his troops. He turned to address the Swiss once more.

“That is quite the biological disaster you have sitting at your feet. I guess we can probably talk about the causes later… but is there any way to get rid of it?”

“I suggest firebombing it. Just… burn it all for all I care…” the same soldier who’d suggested exchanging electronic data spoke up once again.

“We’ve tried, Commander, we’ve tried. But the likes of Xen wildlife is persistent as hell. Areas require constant cleansing to keep the more aggressive species contained. Necrotics, viromes, and all the other exogens.”, the squad leader answered, pointing at the corpses of the headcrab zombies. “It doesn’t help that the entire region is filled with 40 years worth of Combine waste. They declared it a containment zone and dumped most of their trash here. In fact, this ditch was known for being filled with some sort of bio-waste. I would suggest to not go near it until it’s confirmed clean.” He looked at the river. “Although the water certainly looks clearer than I remember.”

“Hmmm, this is quite troublesome…” Waldner spoke his thoughts. “If anything, I may not be fully authorized to take such action, but I’d propose joint efforts in keeping the water sources and surrounding areas clean, if only because doing so could only benefit us both. In our case… I’d rather not have to deal with a poisoned Rhine... or any of the unintended side effects that come with it. You know what, bring that up with your high command. After we sort out all the other diplomatic proceedings and exchange information on history, politics, and whatnot, I think something could be worked out in regards to your pest control problem.”

“I suppose that could be arranged, yes. Wildlife Control probably will not object. Speaking of which.” The squad leader poked a nearby headcrab corpse before picking it up. “Tell your men to look out for these things. We call them ‘headcrabs’ or parasitics. They may look slow, but they jump... these ones up to three meters, some even more. They drill into a human host’s skull and take over the central nervous system. Helmets usually only prolong the inevitable.” He tossed it aside. “Our radial scans are clear, so there shouldn’t be any more around here at the moment.. but that doesn’t mean they aren’t elsewhere along the border.”

“Will do,” Waldner replied as a nearby soldier took a quick picture of the corpse. “I’ll notify the proper authorities so that this hopefully doesn’t get out of hand. Anyways, would any of you be open to a data transfer? Information such as history and whatnot, just so our respective diplomats can review such information beforehand.”

The squad leader thought for a second and radio’d the Captain, who has still hovering at altitude. After a few seconds, he got back on the megaphone. “We don’t really have any protocols regarding a situation like this. Data transfers will have to be prepared by and cleared with Command. However, in the next few days a temporary headquarters will be established nearby with high-ranking officers. They will have the clearance.”

“Very well,” Waldner responded. “If that’s the case then I guess I don’t have much else to talk about. We’ll keep to our side of the river and make sure none of those… headcrabs and necrotics get across and you shall do the same on yours. Is that acceptable?”

The squad leader nodded. “That is indeed acceptable. In that case, since we do not have much else to discuss right now, I wish you a good day.” With that, the Commander and the squad leader turned off their loudspeakers and made their way back to their men, respectively.

The squad leader stepped over to Reto and Jacques, who were still standing by the still-wet Hoffmann. “What should we do with him?”, Reto asked. The squad leader scratched his head. “Check him out, make sure he hasn’t gotten himself poisoned. We’ll return him then.” Reto and Jacques nodded, gesturing for a medic to come over. The squad leader meanwhile walked away, to organize his men, as the sound of more dropships in the distance grew louder.

[Union Princes]

Collab: Italy and Europa (First Contact)

This was supposed to be a diplomatic venture into the German Empire; a normal flight from Rome to Berlin, but Fate seems to intervene on the passengers. The Douglas DC-8 proved to be a good investment on part of the Italian government as Prime Minister Italo Balbo was gently sipping coffee in his seat while he reviewed the latest government reports he received this morning. Traveling with him was Pietro Nenni, Italy’s Foreign Minister, as well as a delegation of diplomats. Those men were experienced dealing with German diplomacy thanks to the late Benito Mussolini’s Axis of Friendship policy.

While Nenni was engaging in small talk with the diplomats, Balbo dug through the files out of reluctant boredom. The mission here was simple: continue the Axis between Berlin and Rome. The Soviets, despite losing the 2nd World War, was still a resilient beast to behold, the communist ideology proving a dangerous threat to Italy’s colonial empire of East Africa. It should only be a couple of hours before their destination would be reached. In the meantime, Balbo made a mental note to himself to thank Germany’s generosity of selling production rights of the Leopard 1 to the Kingdom.

Unknown to the Italians, the moment they had passed the northern border, Imperial early warning installations had locked onto their jet and fighter squadrons had been scrambled to intercept them. The Empire to their north was nothing like the Germany they once knew, and at the moment was also in a state of emergency. As the Italians continued their way through Imperial Europan airspace, a single squad of Eurofighter Typhoons trailed them.

“This is Sergeant Reginaldo Bertucci of the Imperial Europan Airforce speaking to the unknown plane,” A message was relayed over various radio frequencies in both New Latin (Italian) and German. “We ask you to identify yourselves immediately and state your intent! Refusal to do so will result in us taking necessary action in neutralizing you.”

“This jet is part of the Regia Aeronautica Italiana.” answered the pilot captain, slightly confused about this sudden measure of aggression, “This is a government aircraft carrying Prime Minister Italo Balbo, Foreign Minister Pietro Nenni, and an attachment of diplomats. There must have been confusion here. Our king has already sent a message to the German Kaiser that we would be arriving in Berlin today.”

“Regia Aeronautica Italiana?” The response from the Imperials was one of confusion. “Are you saying you aren’t from the Imperial states in Italy?” There was a momentary pause.

“If that’s the case and you represent a foreign nation, we shall redirect you to our actual capital near old Salzburg. Berlin is no longer the capital of Europa, and it would be rather pointless to force you to fly the extra distance. If you have any questions, ask them now.”

The pilot captain and the co-pilot were equally confused about the response they received. “What should we tell the Prime Minister?” the co-pilot inquired with his superior.

“We’ll tell him when we land.” the pilot captain answered before turning his attention to the Imperials. “We’ll follow you to Salzburg. If possible, can you explain to us what you meant by the Imperial States of Italy?”

“Prior to whatever madness occurred earlier, Italy had long been a core part of Europa. It’s been that way since the 1700s, hence why we generally refer to the region as a series of Imperial states,” came the response. “Anyways, follow our lead to Salzburg’s international airport. We’ll be there shortly.”

As the squadron took the lead and directed the Italian jetliner towards Salzburg, the vast silhouette of the city became visible. It would be completely unlike anything the Italians had seen before: modern Europan cities were built in such a manner that they seemed to resemble massive tiered arcologies, which greatly contrasted with the older districts surrounding them. Salzburg was no exception, with a large “new city” separated out from the traditional/historic zones. In the center of the new city was none other than the Imperial Palace itself, the heart of Europa. Even some 20 km away (at the airport which the Italians were supposed to land) the spires of the Imperial capital could be seen poking through the clouds.

“We seem to have arrived sooner than expected,” Nenni remarked cheerfully, amazed at how fast this machine was. “It’s hardly been an hour.”

Italo Balbo was inclined to agree as he was hardly done reading through all his reports. Tearing his eyes away from the papers, the Prime Minister lifted up the window and nearly spat out his coffee when he gazed upon the skyline.

Italo has been to New York, Munich, Paris, London, Berlin, and a dozen other cultural and technologically advanced cities but nothing was compared to Salzburg he saw before him. It was like a dream made real. The buildings had an architecture that was vaguely German yet futuristic, cars (could he even call them cars?) filled the streets while shiny metal grids decorated the roofs of skyscrapers.

He wasn’t the only one shocked out of his mind, Nenni and the diplomats were flabbergasted while the pilots in the cockpit were completely dumbfounded. There were no words in the Italian language that can properly describe the emotions and awe the passengers felt.

“Are we still in the Kaiserreich?” a diplomat asked rhetorically.

As the Italians exited their plane, they would find a rather sizable Imperial procession awaiting them. Roughly half a regiment of fully armed soldiers, dozens of Wespe and Tiger III tanks, and a number of 7th generation knightmare frames (armed with ceremonial maser variation lances, which glowed a light red). A group of well dressed Imperial officers stood by at ready, while a few limousines pulled up at the tarmac.

“Is that Air Marshal Balbo?” One of the soldiers whispered to his friend as Balbo and Nenni walked by.

“Beats me, I thought the Marshal was being redeployed to Galicia to help coordinate the air campaign against the Russians,” his friend replied. “Plus, aren’t these folks supposed to be foreigners?”

A single middle-aged man climbed out of the central Limousine and approached the Italians, waving to them.

“I hope your journey was safe, friends from Italy,” Herbert Frahm (Willy Brandt) said in surprisingly accurate Italian as he approached Nenni and Balbo before offering handshakes to both. “Familiar faces it seems, if from a completely different world. I welcome you to Salzburg, and by extension, the Empire at large.”

Everything felt surreal for the Italians; Balbo being the most bamboozled yet did his best trying to not show it. However, he still looked as drowsy and confused as a morning person without coffee. Foreign Minister Nenni quickly tried to look his best with a small smile but it couldn’t suppress his fish-out-of-water expression.

There was obviously a military waiting for them but they couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that these were supposed to be German soldiers and armor. The tanks and walkers seem to be ripped straight from the science fiction novels that the young Italian kids were reading. Like an acid trip for a historian, the Italian delegation met a Willy Brandt. As far as Balbo and Nenni were aware, Brandt was still a politician of the German SPD party in the Reichstag. A million questions were racing through the Italians’ head with even a million more spawning for every question they received.

Italo shook Frahm’s hand as if he never has done it before and greeted as if he never learned the language. “Mr...Brandt? What...what is going on? Another world? This is Salzburg? The Empire? Don’t you mean the Kaiserreich?”

“Brandt? Ahh, my pen name,” Frahm shrugged. “And yes, this is Salzburg. As for everything else? Frankly, I’m just as confused as you are, especially since just a while ago my country lost communication with more or less everyone it knew in but an instant. This isn’t the Kaiserreich you’re probably familiar with, though the name sounds familiar. But as I said earlier, welcome to the Pan Europan Empire. I hope we can clear things up in a moment, but we best get going right now,” Frahm indicated the limousines. “I decided to take this meeting into my own hands, seeing that our foreign minister is sick at the moment. My full title is Reich Chancellor, though prime minister works as well.”

“If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I’ll attempt answering them to the best of my ability.”

The entourage sheepishly escorted themselves into the limos, having still not recovered from the shock of seeing the walkers. In the car, Italo looked like he was about the pass out while Nenni looked visibly pale. The diplomats seemed to age 10 years just by looking at the war machines that greeted them.

“Pan European Empire...the Imperial States....Salzburg….” the Italian Prime Minister mumbled under his breath.

Trying to be polite, Nenni tried to engage a conversation: “What is the current date?”

“Imperial Britannian Calendar or anno domini? Oh well, might as well give both dates,” Frahm shrugged. “It’s currently Jan 1st, 2018 a.t.b, ascension throne britannia as the Britannians call it, or 1967 AD if you go by the old Roman system. I personally prefer the second. Say… what year is it for you?” He asked as the limos sped off towards the city center.

“1967.” the Italian Foreign Minister answered slowly, still processing that they are somehow in 2018, the new millennia.
“Would explain those armored machines on legs at the airport.” Italo grimaced, He genuinely pondered on the idea that the passenger jet time traveled into the future. Weirdly though, the more advanced the technology he saw outside the limo’s window, there was this nagging sensation of recognition he felt at the back of his mind. Brandt’s, err Frahm’s, entire presence proves it. “What were those things at the airport? Next to the soldiers? And what are those shiny grids on top of the skyscrapers and near the roads?”

“The knightmare frames? Ahh,” Frahm nodded. “We also call them tactical surface fighters… though that name never caught on. They’re basically combat mechs. Faster and more maneuverable than modern tanks, if not quite as well armored. They’re armed with… a variety of weapons. As for those grids? Solar panels. They harvest the energy from sunlight and convert them into electricity. A clean alternative if you don’t want to burn fossil fuels,” Frahm finished.

In the meantime, the limos began to pass through parts of older Salzburg. These areas of the city were definitely more recognizable to the Italians due to their traditional architecture and smaller, paved stone roads. Shops and businesses lined the streets as civilians hurried around.

“Solar panels,” Nenni mumbled. “Sounds like something our scientists and engineers could work on.”

Italo nodded in agreement. He thought of a policy change to make something useful of the deserts in their colonies with those devices. His mind drifted towards those combat mechs and wondered how different the World Wars would’ve been if the Soviets or the Germans had them. When the limos passed through the old Salzburg, the Prime Minister felt strangely comforted. Despite how much technology has changed the lives of this “Kaiserreich”, some things just never change.

The Italians saw the German citizens wearing clothes they never thought would catch on, from brands they never knew existed, and buying from shops they never saw before.

“So…” Balbo patted his knees, “I suppose our goal here remains the same?”

“I assume…” Nenni shrugged, “This is possibly the closest thing to the Kaiserreich we have.”

“Well, assuming negotiations go smoothly, I could always arrange for the Empire to aid you in acquiring solar panels,” Frahm smiled. “It’s in our interests to keep the environment clean, and solar panels do aid greatly in that. Also helps keep some of the less productive regions in the Empire at least somewhat useful. Anyhow, what brings you men to the Empire today? I assume something to do with diplomacy?”
The limos in the meantime had finally entered the new city, having passed through a number of checkpoints and over a bridge (where an artificial moat separated the two halves). Compared to old Salzburg… new Salzburg was definitely something out of a book. Its massive steel and glass skyscrapers towered through the layered “tiers” of the city as thousands of schrabidium-powered cars traversed across the vast highways within. As with any capital city, large monuments dedicated to the Empire’s heroes and vast parks decorated vast swathes of the urban landscape.

“That would be grand.” Balbo smiled pleasantly for the first time, “That you for the offer. And you are right about our mission.”

“We were supposed to be heading to Berlin to negotiate the continuation of the Rome-Berlin Axis of Friendship.” Nenni explained, “The Geopolitical situation in...our world… is heavily marked between the monarchies and the democracies of the West against Soviet Communism from the East. Even though we have beaten them over two decades prior, Soviet Russia still remains a numerical threat. Given that the Kaiserreich and Regno d’Italia reside in Central Europe, it was up to us to prevent Soviet aggression from expanding ever westward.”

“But since this is ‘Pan Europa’,” Balbo sighs, “I reckon that there is no such threat of Communism nor I feel there is another Great European power that borders us directly. But we can still restart the negotiations here if you want.”

“Ahh of course!” Frahm nodded. “I was going to suggest such had you not brought it up just now. Historically Italy was part of the Empire… but nevertheless we’ve always had good relations with our Italians. You know it’s funny: there’s currently an Air Marshal Balbo who looks just like you in Galicia at the moment. I believe he’s coordinating the Empire’s air campaign against the Russians… who decided to invade us a few hours ago. You should meet him someday,” Frahm noted.

“But anyways, an Axis of Friendship you say?” He asked as the limos came to a stop near the Empire’s massive Reichstag (it seemed to resemble the one in Germania). “I’d need to know some more context in order to come to a conclusion, but I’m sure our nations can work something out.”

“For one, how closely allied was your nation with the German Empire?” Frahm led the Italians up the stairs and into the main building. Once again there were numerous fully armored guards standing at ready, and yet more mechs (outside the building).

Italo and Pietro looked at each other when Frahm went on a tangent. This moment seems to be the happiest Brandt they’re ever going to meet. However, Italo looked slightly intrigued when Frahm mentioned an Air Marshal that had the same face and name. Really is funny. The Prime Minister thought. I really could’ve been an Air Marshal if it wasn’t for Mussolini. Meanwhile, Pietro looked slightly downcast. Apparently, Russia exists in this world as well and it’s already attacking the Empire. Depending on the ideology, the situation could be as bad or even worse than the Soviet threat in their world.

As the men got out of the limo, Italo quickly tried to go over the history of the Axis while trying not to be distracted by the grandeur of the Reichstag. The whole building was more magnificent in ambition as much as design than some of the monuments and landmarks in Europe or America.

“The treaty all started when the Kaiserreich and Regno d’Italia went to war in 1941 over the colonial dispute in East Africa between Tanzania and Somalia.” the Prime Minister hastily explained, “It would’ve escalated into a repeat of WW1 with trenches in the Alps if it weren’t for the USSR declaring war on the Kaiserreich. Prime Minister Benito Mussolini correctly knew that a Communist Germany would be an absolute nightmare to contain and quickly negotiated a white truce for both Empires to unite together against the Soviet threat. Thus the Rome-Berlin Axis of Friendship was born. We manage to beat back the Red Tide and force a return to the status quo. Since then, Germany and Italy remained united as mutual allies against a common threat. We traded technologies to help bolster each other’s firepower. The Germans gave us tanks and guns in return for Italian naval expertise.”

“An unlikely but ultimately mutually beneficial friendship,” Frahm nodded as he and the others made their way into one of the Reichstag’s many conference rooms. “Kind of reminds me of Italy’s role in our empire. They always did have some of the Empire’s most developed ports, and I believe half of our newer ships were commissioned there.”

Taking a seat, Frahm was quick to make himself comfortable. “Either way, as much as it would be… very out of place to make an alliance with a nation I’ve just happened to meet, I believe at the very least we could possibly make arrangements for trade agreements and possible technical exchanges? The empire’s experts would be interested in seeing what Italy has to offer, and I’m sure the feeling is mutual. As for military matters… a non-aggression pact? I’d like to hear your opinions on that.”

Italo and Pietro smiled at Frahm’s remark, looking quite pleased about their country. Even in other worlds, Italy would always be a naval power. For a time, the Italian pair basked in the interior of the Reichstag before reaching a stop at a conference room. Italo sat on the left side of the table while Pietro took a seat on the right.

“A non-aggression pact would do just fine.” the Prime Minister quickly warmed up to the idea. “And technological exchanges and open trade would be excellent for both parties involved.” However, the Foreign Minister had some other concerns to be addressed as well.

“If I may add,” Pietro quickly intervenes in the discussion, “We might need to do an information exchange of our culture and politics. We are going to have a rough time explaining what happened to us and the world we now inhabit. Perhaps our monarchies doing a royal tour across our countries?”

“Hmmm, this is a very interesting proposal, I’m sure his Majesty the Emperor and the Royal Family would consider it,” Frahm noted. “As for information exchange? That can definitely be arranged. Once you establish your embassy in this city, which I’m sure you’d like to do, access to public databases, libraries, and the internet will be available for you. Wait… you don’t know what the internet is, do you?”

Both Italians looked at each other as if the other knew what the internet was. “No, we don’t know what the internet is….” Pietro recalled. “Is it like a public forum? First time hearing such a thing exists.”

“Ahh, I guess a live demonstration should be in order then…” Frahm reached for his bag and took out a laptop. “This is a laptop, a type of personal computer that we use commonly around here. It can store vast quantities of information: everything ranging from books to blueprints to movies and pictures. It can also access what we term the internet,” He continued, logging onto his Eurotube profile (youtube).

“The Internet… you can think of it as a massive virtual public forum, where you can communicate and share things with people from around the world so long as they have a connection. It allows soldiers at the front to chat with their families back in Europe, kids to play virtual games and watch videos, professors in far off places to share notes, and so on. Quite the nifty invention if I may say so myself. Which reminds me… I think it would be quite beneficial if the Empire were allowed to extend the Internet into Italy.”

“Utterly fascinating!” Italo stood up in awe at the revolutionary device. Computers in Italy were never this small and the fact that Frahm pulled it out of a bag was mindboggling. Even Pietro had to clean his glasses to ensure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. “This..this is really helpful for us. We can quickly spread our discovery throughout the empire. Although first, we are going to put this under government use only just to learn the internal workings of the internet before we allow this publicly. Such an advantage would allow communist insurgents to spread like wildfire.”
Pietro wholeheartedly agrees with Balbo’s assessment. “In the meantime, distributing books, radios, and newspapers would be a good start on spreading awareness. God only knows the amount of chaos that is occurring in our kingdom right now because of this new world.”

“Very much the case in Europa as well, this whole transition to a new world has gotten more than a few people riled up, nevermind the terrible effect it’s had on the stock market!” Frahm exclaimed. “But yes, once we do begin introducing the internet, our government has more than its fair share of experts who know a trick or two about monitoring potential insurgents. Anyhow, is there anything else your country wishes to do with ours? We’ve preliminarily agreed upon non-aggression, free trade, and possible technical exchanges. I’ll have this all drafted into a single document that should be available to you in a few days or so after the Emperor looks it over.”

Italo pondered for a moment, almost lost in thought, as he internally reviewed all that he saw and heard today. He was surprised about himself that he somehow remained calm throughout the ordeal. “This may be a bit of a stretch,” the Prime Minister spoke up. “But we should also focus our efforts on getting back to our original world. As comforting as it is to have something familiar, I do feel like we need to go back; that Italy wasn’t meant to reside in this world for long.”

“I feel that sentiment as well: the whole event’s been highly troubling and this new world we find ourselves within feels… wrong. That said, I’m sure the Empire would be willing to cooperate with your nation in studying the science behind the event if that’s what you’re asking. Anyways, if that is all, I shall file the order for your embassy and get on my way. There are many things to attend to, and I’m sure the same can be said for Italy.”

“Quite right.” Pietro agreed, “We best begin going home as fast as possible to explain the situation to our kingdom. There is a lot for the people to take in.”

“Our delegation should be able to form a comprehensive document with yours when we meet again.” Balbo assures, “I hope that the future grants us the very best of luck.”

Once the men exited the Reichstag and entered the limos, they waved one of many farewells to Frahm before embarking on their journey back to their country.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Reichshauptstadt Berlin
Reichschancellory
The Führer

The great smoke plume left behind by the allied dogs' nuclear device hung above the ruins of what was once the beating heart of a proud empire, intent on becoming the greatest of human civilizations to have ever existed, adding its eerie appearance to the cloudy and darkened sky that hung over the land.

The city appeared dead...and yet it also did not. The buildings were in ruin, little more than burned out skeletons and facades of their former glory, fires still raging in some parts of the city and demolishing even more of it. Corpses were strewn all about the streets and houses yet their positions indicated that a dark intelligence had arrayed them in the most morbid of poses. Wether it was garden fences topped with the impaled heads of soviet soldiers or grafitti made from blood, it was all a sign of a brutality that went far beyond what normal humans were capable and willing to do. And the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes were still there, not making even a single attempt at hiding, shuffling across the streets with glowing eyes and moans on their rotten lips as they seemed to aimlessly wander about the city.

"The Book of Souls predicted my ascent."

Suddenly a voice cut through the relative, deathly silence of the city. A voice both so human and familiar yet also strangely foreign and inhuman, audible as though it came from every direction and was repeated multiple times. The shuffling men in the streets immediately turned their heads, like dogs who heard the dog whistle. Just a second later they turned their bodies with some efforts and shuffled towards what they knew to be the origin of the voice, a voice calling out to them and commanding them to listen, to obey.

"The Hellmouth illuminates the righteous struggle before us! We stand on the brink of eternal power!"

It was in the center of Berlin, a place from which, in better times, a madman had ruled and vowed for his nation to either rule the world or cease to exist, that a veritable crowd of these downtrodden masses gathered, drawn towards the man standing behind a small podium fashioned in the likeness of a golden eagle gripping a swastika within its claws. A man whose skin had taken on a sickly colour, whose clothes were drenched with blood, gore and pus and whose eyes were of the same, glowing orange colour as those of the undead gathering before him. With his hands he gestured wildly, a speaker even after death, as though he was still speaking to a mortal audience that would react to the tricks he had learned to captivate a crowd. Yet this crowd was different, bound to him through their vows made to serve him in life and the power of the artifact he had at his disposal.

"Deputies! It is your duty! Your honourable sacrifice!

We are determined and united!"

Several of the undead seemed to perk up a little when they were addressed as deputies. A few even raised their right arm as though to salute.

"The world will be reborn from the ashes of our purifying flame! We will be relentless!"

Several of the fires burning around the horde that was gathering suddenly seemed to gain in ferocity, rising in height and their heat becoming hard to take if there had been any mortals here. A few of the zombies who stood too close to the rising flames were engulfed within them but the flames soon died down again to their normal height, leaving behind charred, nearly nacked undead...yet they were still standing, even with smoke still rising from their bodies and some embers still flickering here and there.

"The Fatherland will NEVER fall!"

As if to support his words, the moustachioed zombie at the front suddenly bent over, slamming his fists onto the podium with such force, it shook and nearly broke. But then he froze, his eyes gazing at the sky for but a moment. Had his eyes tricked him? They were no living eyes anymore so perhaps that was one of the drawbacks? Still, he was quite sure the sky had been purple for but a moment.

"Interesting..."

, he murmured and took the Book of Souls from his podium, walking back into the Reichschancellory. Interesting indeed. He would have to see if he actually had any problems with his vision. Or if what he had seen actually had any further reaching consequences...

Reichshauptstadt Berlin
Reich Ministry of Propaganda
The High Priest

There was a certain longing within the gaze of the small, frail man in his brown uniform, standing at one of the windows of the Ministry of Propaganda and staring down onto the street, littered with rubble and destroyed cars or barricades. Even through the iron bars let into his window frame and the barbed wire attached before it, he could see the figures walking around on the street below. He couldn't hear them, not from this height and with his closed window, not when they were peaceful, like now.

He liked to imagine how it would be to be among them. To be immortal and live forever, to not have to worry ever again, to be but a cog in a beautiful machine of death that the Führer built...oh and of course to not feel pain anymore, the man thought sourly as he stared down at his leg before limping towards his desk and taking a seat behind it, going through a stack of documents.

They were propaganda posters. The man smirked, considering himself lucky that among those who had seen the brilliance within the Führer's new, great plan, were a few with a good artistic vein. Some of the pictures were a bit eerie to look at...but they were going to serve their purpose. The purpose of crushing the morale of their enemies and showing all who resisted the futility in their endeavours...to bring more into their fold as they would fall into despair and hopelessness, surrendering to the Führer's overwhelming power. The man's smirk widened as he went through more of the well drawn pictures. Yes, these were truly good. Even the one that called for able bodied, young women to donate their flesh to the army of the dead was great, though the depicted girl's smile was a bit too fake for the man's liking. He took a pencil and drew a circle around it, adding a note to make it less creepy before stuffing all the posters into a compartment on his desk which was usually regularly emptied by his secretary.

Just as he was finished with that, a knock to one of his windows made him turn around in his chair with dizzying speed, a Luger P08 handgun, which had laid ready on his desk, in his hand and pointed at the window in question. But the man who was considered to be the High Priest of the Führerkult relaxed immediately when he saw the green glowing eye staring at him through the glass. It seemed like there was an urgent message for him from one of his posts. He wondered what it could possibly be as he got up, not without some pains, and made his way over to the window.

He could now see that the Deadeye Sniper outside was holding on to the iron bars before the window, having his scoped Gewehr 43 rifle slung over his shoulder and knocking onto the glass with what looked like...ah a vinyl record? The limping man's curiosity was piqued as he quickly undid the latches on the window and opened it, receiving the record from the sniper hanging outside who just handed it over wordlessly before just jumping away from the window, seemingly landing on the roof of the opposite building with ease and vanishing out of sight as quickly as he had appeared, leaving the limping man with no one but himself and the record in his hand, staring enviously after the undead sniper.

Oh how he wished to be turned. To become one with the dead and gain a new existence, free from the shackles that his mortal form put upon him. But no, he shook his head. He was worth more to the Führer and the realization of his vision alive. The Führer had made that quite clear when he had begged him to turn him too into one of the undead...and he was content with that. It made him feel important! He was too important to be turned before the world had not been claimed! There was no way anyone had ever stroked his ego any better than that.

He decided to take another look at the record, seeing that his subordinates had hefted a small piece of paper to it which read:

Allied Radio Transmission (US)
09.10.1945, Reichssender Berlin-Tegel
Großdeutscher Rundfunk

The man furrowed his brows in confusion. Transmissions from the Allies were no rarity as the war was still going on and there were still plenty of holdouts of the dreaded Survivor Brigade. Normally his men worked swiftly and efficiently to pinpoint the locations these were being sent to or from to then eliminate these pockets of resistance. So what was so different about this one that they found it important enough to hand to a Deadeye Sniper and have it brought across the city to him. Hmmmm, he'd have to call in his secretary earlier afterall, just so he could have a look at this...

[Democratic East-Asia]

Collab: Reunion + Europa + Russia
20 km from the Russian border, 192nd Imperial Armored Division (Swabia)

Hans Jager chuckled at the clear misfortune of his comrades from the Indian Army’s 19th Division, all of whom clearly lacked proper winter equipment (thanks to the ISOT). Unlike those nerds he and his unit were in fact completely prepared for the wintery hell that Eastern Europe happened to be in January, mostly because prior to the ISOT the 192nd had been stationed… in Ukraine.

“Those poor fuckers haven’t even seen it all!” He and a few others laughed. A squad from the 19th Division nearby evidently heard them, and shouted some insults back. Hans shrugged, it’s not like those folks would be able to do anything.

“Heads up everyone!” An officer from nearby jumped into Hans’ foxhole. “The satellites are still getting online but I believe we might be seeing movement from east of the old Russian border.”

“Wait what?” Hans asked. Russians? He thought the Russians had been pushed back to the urals.
…
Meanwhile on the Russian Side

“The Great Trial is upon us!” Was the cry from the Platoon Commissar, a towering and legendary figure who was rumored to have fought since the Germans first invaded in 1941. “Today marks the day the Tueton learned to fear what he thought to be his servant! Today we give them a taste of the destruction and hell they wrecked upon our brothers and sisters! Show strength, Show pride, but show no mercy.” The Reclamation Army cheered before breaking into a chant, “Never Again! Never Again! Never Again!” Private Viktor Tsoi joined in the cheering when behind them the boom and fwoosh of artillery thundered in the distance and was muffled as his cadre loaded into their BMPs.

...
Hans had around 3 seconds to contemplate his surroundings before the thunder of artillery drove him to instinctively duck inside his foxhole. It seemed someone was shelling the general region, well, shelling might’ve been an understatement. Hans did not remember the partisans having access to full regiments of artillery (at the very least).

“Oh Jesus Christ!” An unnamed soldier nearby quickly unslung his carbine and checked its ammo counter. “What the hell’s going on?!”

“Like hell I’d know!” Hans screamed. This was insanity. Why were they getting attacked? This frontier was supposed to be secure!

The nearby radio was buzzing with activity: forward units of the Imperial Army had come under heavy artillery fire from what appeared to be partisans (?), though the sheer enormity of the event suggested this was anything but a partisan attack.

This is commander Jacob Hillwig of the 143rd Armored Division reporting in! We’re under heavy artillery fire from what appear to be Russian partisans across the border! Requesting fire support immediately! I repeat, requesting fire support immediately! The radio blared as Hans and the others readied their rifles. A few of the Tiger III and Wespe tanks opened up with their railguns at long range: Hans honestly wasn’t sure why but he was then reminded of the fact his particular unit didn’t have SPGs.

The ground shook violently as a squadron of Eurofighter Lancers flew by. Evidently the local air bases had been alerted sometime earlier.

…
5 km from the border, 143rd Division, “The Frontline”

“INCOMING!!!” A gas-mask wearing officer yelled before hitting the ground as a nearby Wespe was torn apart by a barrage of artillery shells. Explosions rocked the Imperial “line” of defense (which was honestly just a variety of independent units set up on a general perimeter) as partisan (?) artillery unleashed hell upon the Europans.

The soldiers of the 143rd and other “frontline” divisions in the Eastern Ukraine were caught by surprise, and rushed to their posts amidst an intense bombardment. Some of the tanks weren’t functioning properly due to the cold, the same could be said of the knightmare frames present. Nevertheless, the Europans said their prayers and prepared for the worst. Guns and cannons were trained upon the horizon in front of them while frantic calls for reinforcements were sent to regional HQs. General Kugel was about to have a bad day.
…

The BMP rocked forward as Viktor and his cadre put on their gloves and gasmasks with the final two minutes the European troops would see the trail of white gas landing and spreading as concoctions of various gas weapons were deployed ranging from the basic chlorine to the nerve toxins of Sarin. The SPAA and Mig-29s began to track the Eurofighters in the incoming battle over superiority. Viktor racked the charging handle on his AKM and pulled his bayonet from its sheath and prepared himself for the coming battle as outside, even muffled by his mask and metal hull of the BMP, the firing of its own main gun and that of the T-72s. A quick call from his cadre leader and the doors of the BMP flew open and in a manner of seconds they troops filed out and laid prone across the ground. Slamming himself onto the ground, Viktor fired on the first German he saw. His adrenaline was running too high to notice the odd look of the troops he was fighting. Firing a burst the Russian saw the first two become absorbed by the armor before the last one pierce causing him to drop. Seeing his comrades lay enough fire, the Private and his cadre of some 40 men charged the foxholes with some Russians being cut down as soon as they stood up.
…
Further from the Frontline
Caroline Henig of the Imperial Tank Corp took a deep breath after doing a quick scan of the horizon. It was impossible, it really was: there were simply too many partisan vehicles. How did the formerly disorganized Russian warlords manage to amass themselves an army of tanks? As much as she believed in the superiority of Imperial engineering (as all Imperials did), the 143rd had maybe 100 tanks and 120 KMFs in working condition compared to the horde of enemies it faced. What to do? It would probably be wise to order a retreat… but that wouldn’t be prudent. The 143rd would hold until it received further orders.

Her thoughts were most rudely interrupted by the sharp CLANG of a Russian armor piercing sabot deflecting off the turret of her Tiger III. Overhead, she noticed that the Empire’s first squadrons of Eurofighters had entered combat (they’d already begun firing missiles). Henig wished those men and women luck. The Eurofighter was a fine plane, but there were only so many of them in the air at the moment.

“This is Commander Henig to all units of the 143rd: select your targets and open fire!” She finished just as her own Tiger III’s railgun unleashed its payload with a resounding BOOM. In the distance, small explosions indicated where the tanks (and KMFs) of the 143rd managed to hit.

“How many shots do we have?” Henig asked her gunner.

“39 left, though that includes 14 high explosive shells.”

“Make every shot count.”
…
Frontline

“Fucking Russian dogs!” An Imperial soldier secured his gas mask before grabbing his rifle and opening up on the Russians who were rushing his position.

“Choose your targets and open fire!” An officer nearby shouted before firing his G12 at the waves of enemies approaching. A nearby KMF attempted to do some sort of fancy trick as it zoomed by and wasted two enemy APCs with its rifle… before getting struck by what appeared to be a tank shell.

“Wow, just wow!” A Jewish soldier by the name of Emanuel Goldstein sighed. “Fucking showoff gets himself waste-”

“Oh shut the fuck up Goldstein! Don’t you see we’re in the middle of a firefight here?!” A nearby soldier yelled before getting clipped in the visor. He was dead in a second.

“Of course…” Goldstein grumbled before firing a few bursts and taking out another two Russians. “Five kills… not too bad I guess…”

“Don’t let them get any closer!” A nearby officer ducked his head as a machine gun crew blasted away with their MG-80. “These Russian animals! Show them what it means to be an Imperial soldier!”

“Five hostiles moving up from the left!” Goldstein yelled as his visor caught movement from a nearby ditch. One of the Russians shouted something as he raised his rifle, but Goldstein was marginally faster and managed to put three bullets in the man’s chest. The other Russians were downed by the remainder of Emanuel’s squad.

“Sir they’re getting too close! What do we do?!” A panicked college student asked the squad’s commander.

“Ahh shit!” The trench-coat, goose-stepping officer grunted. “Pflanzt auf das Bajonett!” He commanded before unsheathing his sword. “The moment they get on top of us we’ll show them what it means to be Europan!”

The other soldiers nearby quickly took out their Seitengewehrs and fixed them onto their rifles (and carbines). Emanuel, however, had another idea.

“Fuck this I am NOT dying in some burnt out Ukrainian shithole…” he muttered to himself before taking off and sprinting to a nearby KMF (which had been deactivated the whole time, and the pilot was nowhere to be found).

“Emanuel get back here!” The officer screamed. “I’ll have you court martialed for this!”

“A smart soldier knows when it’s right to retreat,” Emanuel yelled back before hopping into the driver’s seat of the KMF and activating the damn machine. He’d never driven one of them outside of the few sims they made available for potential recruits, but this would have to do. The Hummel roared to life as Emanuel slammed the on button. Machine-gun rounds and autocannon fire ricocheted off the machine as Emanuel made a quick turn and neutralized a few clusters of enemies before dashing back towards friendly lines.

"Go to hell Goldstein! Für das Reich! Lang lebe Europa!" The old officer from before eviscerated the first Russian who jumped at him before stabbing a second through the gut. “Hold the line you fo-AAAH!!” He screamed as yet another Russian took him by surprise from behind and stabbed him in the back. All around the now dying officer, the vastly outnumbered soldiers of the 143rd fought for their lives in CQC.
...

Viktor leapt into a foxhole and slammed his AK’s stock into the first German he saw and heard the crack of glass before flipping his rifle around and fired a burst into his midsection before climbing out. Around him his comrades gave yells and cries for Russia and for Yazov before either being cut down or slamming bayonets into the Germans. Before the first line was completely clear the artillery began to shift their fire to the second and third lines. Viktor hopped onto the first BMP he saw with some of his cadre as they pushed forward, isolating the few hardpoints left to be mopped up by later units. Though muffled by their gas masks a comrade of his cadre leaned over and said, “When we were told we were fighting the Germans like the Russians under Nevsky. I did not expect them to mean it literally.” Both men laughed as he glanced towards one of the destroyed mechs and gave a smile at the sight. Somehow the pilot had lived and was being dragged out by her air. Gasping for clean air, the woman was thrown onto the ground as a fireteam of Russians began to kick and stab until the woman began nothing but a mutilated corpse. Viktor felt an energy as the vehicle thundered forward. The Tueton was beginning to feel the first cuts of scars the Russians have dealt with for years and it made him and the men around him ecstatic.
…

The sheer ferocity and momentum of the Russian attack proved overwhelming to the scattered Imperial border divisions (many of which didn’t even expect to be engaged in combat). Casualties were high: numerous imperial divisions were surrounded and destroyed. The 143rd Armored Division’s rear regiments managed to retreat with reasonable losses (and a high kill count in terms of vehicles), though the forward regiments were more or less obliterated. Emanuel Goldstein would be one among the 26 survivors of the 217th Prussian Infantry who managed to reach friendly lines, out of an original strength of 1,600. The Imperial Airforce’s Eurofighters performed admirably (for how outnumbered they were): their superior firing range and stealth systems giving them a notable advantage over the older jets fielded by the enemy. Nevertheless it was far from enough to halt the Russians: a bulk of the Imperial air force was still quite far from the front and the Imperial Army was outnumbered over 7:1 in this theatre.

Orders were issued in a hurry to all frontline units west of the Dneiper: Fall back.

Somewhere in “Europa” (the capital city of the Empire), a certain Prime Minister received a barrage of calls from his generals.

On Jan 2nd of Year 0 / 2018 a.t.b, the Europan Empire formally declared war on Russia. Things were about to get messy.
…

[Apto]

Collab: Reunion + Europa
Reunion, Russo-Europan Border

“You will know the difference between being the enemy of the Empire, and the Empire thinking of you as one.” Those had been the words of their drill instructors when the Yetis had begun their training under Patriot’s Veterans. Back then, the meaning behind that warning was lost on the vengeful children, but the sound of a million guns firing and being silenced, of countless aircraft desperately maneuvering and failing, had given them a glance at the truth. The destruction that the two foreign armies had brought one another was nothing short of cataclysmic. It was unlike the guerilla wars the Yetis were used too in the tundra, where the presence of massed artillery was rare. Just a few hours ago, explosive shells dropped from the sky like rain and split the earth in twain, only to leave the wreckage of machines and men behind to be buried by the falling snow. It was this mass graveyard that the Phantoms scoured, fittingly enough, akin to the ghosts that haunted such burial sites.

They moved with the subtlety of stalking predators, combat squads advancing ahead of the Yetis to secure the search area from any approaching unknowns, Arts hiding their presence from all senses. All the while, the white-clad Yetis explored every foxhole, every trench they could find. They needed maps and compasses, letters and missives, anything that could tell them where they were and more importantly how.

Each and every one of them remembered their last moments in Lungmen, and to find themselves in the tundra once more, almost getting caught in a battle between two foreign armies they could not recognize just baffled their imaginations. FrostNova was no exception to the confusion, but the Yetis and the Phantoms were nothing if not disciplined, and they both responded with the characteristic efficiency expected of them once her orders were given. The speculation could wait for later when the sleighs were filled with supplies, loot, and if they were lucky, survivors.

She could only hope that whoever they found spoke a similar language.
…
Abandoned hut, somewhere along the frontlines

Private Dmitry Tymchenko (Dieter Schneider) of the Imperial 95th Armored Division kept as silent as possible while checking his bag for more ammunition. Two magazines left: 100 rounds of ammunition. The 26-year old Ukrainian sighed before loading one of his two remaining mags into his rifle. He couldn’t believe that in the span of just under 6 hours, he’d already used nearly 600 rounds of ammunition (he’d taken a good deal from his dead comrades). The fighting had been incredibly intense: the 95th managed to inflict multiple times its losses on the Russians (mostly due to its vastly superior vehicles) but in turn had more or less been obliterated. The sheer brutality of the Russians meant that few if any PoWs were taken, and Dmitry honestly didn’t want to think about the hell those taken prisoner would have to go through. He wasn’t even sure if anyone else was still alive at this point, well, other than a certain officer he had with him.

Dozing off in one of the hut’s corners and covered by a somewhat oversized uniform (and leopard’s fur) was none other than the division’s political commissar: one Claudia Maier. Quite short at just under 5’ tall, the pink-haired Commissar girl was… rather out of place amongst her compatriots. Dmitry heard that she was evidently mixed race too: half Japanese if rumors were to be believed. Well, that was interesting and all but he didn’t have time to dwell on those facts at the moment. The point was that Claudia was wounded… rather badly. During the extended firefight earlier today she’d been hit by rifle rounds a total of 7 times. Luckily her armor stopped six of the shots, but a seventh one managed to pierce through her thigh and cause a high amount of bleeding. Bruised up from the first six shots and suffering from increasingly high blood loss due to the seventh, Claudia’s chances weren’t looking too good.

Naturally, Dmitry had done whatever he could in helping the commissar: he’d dragged her to safety and patched up her wounds to the best of his ability. But even then, he was just a simple soldier, not an Imperial doctor in a hospital. Chances were that neither him nor Claudia would probably live to see the next day at this rate.

“Deiter… no… Dmitry, I could use some water…” Claudia mumbled as she woke up.

“No problems comrade,” Deiter reached for his water jug and handed it to her. The snow had been picking up, which made leaving the hut harder but at the same time offered a fresh supply of water. At the very least nobody would be going thirsty. That said, things were looking quite grim.

Dmitry muttered a quick prayer to god, praying for safety, before going back to keeping watch. Hopefully help would arrive in time.
…
Russo-Europan Border, Abandoned Hut

There was much to glean from the uniforms of dead men and the wreckage of warmachines, but it would have been even better to capture a live specimen. Alas, the destruction present on the field seemed to have made that an impossibility. FrostNova was no armchair general, and though her physique had long been ruined by her Oripathy, she still assisted in the looting of bodies and supplies. None of their recent prizes however, could ever compare to the potential of what came next.

The Cautus ears’ twitched, catching the sound of spoken words in the wind. With the silence of their work and the quiet that accompanied the aftermath of battlefields, it wasn’t hard to hear whispers no matter how faint for one such as her. It had come north of her position, around a hundred or so meters. If she recalled the Phantoms’ reports correctly, there wasn’t much there besides a ruined village they were in the process of scouting thoroughly. The Phantoms had to be notified of this new discovery.

Russo-Europan Border, Abandoned Village

Much like most of Reunion’s squad formations, Strider consisted of twelve operators. Seeing as they were on a reconnaissance mission, Strider Actual saw fit to grab six Lurkers, two Phantom Medics, and three more Phantom Crossbowmen with them. Strider herself was a Phantom Crossbowwoman, and the acting CO of the Phantoms while Faust wasn’t around. Many would have considered a Sankta ill-fitt for the role of stealth considering her glowing wings and halo, but the Phantom’s Arts hid her well regardless even if it did take more effort than usual. When the encrypted radio communication from the Yetis reached Strider, she and her squad had already been on the prowl. Though the survivors tried to hide their presence, the tracks on the snow were fresh and easily discerned by those who knew to look for them. Not only that, but one of her Lurkers, a young Cautus who went by the callsign “Eurice”, had been able to hear the labored breaths of the two unknowns. One of their quarry was already injured, and the other wasn’t in the best shape either. Normally, anyone could just rush in and take the two down, but the abundance of firearms the dead possessed indicated that a direct assault would not be advisable. Strider was Sankta, she would know.

The gray ghost considered her options as she watched unseen from the height of another building, overlooking the hut their targets were taking shelter in, before signing to the others around her. The other phantoms nodded, and began to move.

Eurice and another Lurker would hide their presence beside the main entrance of the hut, while one other Lurker would take a window. Strider in the meantime, would remain atop her nest, with the perfect angle to shoot into the hut. The other two Phantom Crossbowmen would also take positions in their own, separate nests with a clear view of the hut’s contents, while the two medics would remain on standby, ready to rush in and sedate their captives for treatment and questioning, or extract one of their own in case things went awry. Once everyone was in position, Strider would signal the beginning of the operation by loosing a crossbow bolt aimed straight at the unwounded soldier’s gun, knocking it out of his hands. Taking advantage of the surprise, the Lurker by the window would then break into the room as a distraction, dropping his disguise whilst Eurice and her partner rushed in at the same time under the cloak of their Arts to tackle and disarm both of their targets. All the while, the remaining crossbowmen would be on overwatch, ready to maim their targets if they did anything that would put their allies in mortal danger.

Dmitry might’ve been a trained soldier, but given the situation at hand he was in no condition to properly react to the sudden assault launched at him by the Reunion lurkers. The G12 he was holding went flying out of his hand as a crossbow bolt struck it, and right before the Imperial trooper was able to grab his combat knife, two Lurkers burst into the hut and slammed poor Dmitry to the floor. He started cursing in Ukrainian while his assailants inspected the room and approached the division commissar.

“Who are you people?!” He screamed in Ukrainian while attempting (in vain) to squirm around. “Let go of me! I am a soldier of the Imperial Army!”

Eurice raised an eyebrow behind her mask. That sounded like some sort of strangely accented Ursus dialect. That was good, they could understand one another at least. The Cautus, much like the rest of the Phantoms, weren't much for verbal communication however, and as one of the other Phantoms held the other target at the point of their sword, another began to search her for weapons and radioes before doing the same to the cursing soldier. "Targets secured, send a sleigh over." From her perch, Strider reloaded her crossbow as she radioed the Yetis who replied with an affirmative. Until the transports came, she would just have to watch over her subordinates.

"Move. Don't stop until I say so." Eurice whispered into the soldier's ears, voice youthful with an edge of hardness, as she stood up from the tackle, sword pointed at him and with another hand pointing outside. She would take him out in the open, far enough that the foreigner's companion wouldn't be able to hear one another. "Give me your names, who you work for, who you fought, and where we are. Lie, and I gut you." The line of questions and the threat at the end were delivered with the nonchalance of someone talking about the weather.

At the same time, the same line of questions were asked of the wounded Imperial soldier in a decidedly less hostile manner as a Medic entered the hut and laid their hand on the bullet wound, regenerating flesh and bone while pushing debris out of the body.

As much as Dmitry would resist telling his captors what he knew, the man was utterly exhausted and saw the futility in such action. He took a moment to register what the girl (?) who whispered to him was saying; it must’ve been Russian given the odd pronunciation of certain words. That was strange: he never remembered any Russians who dressed like that nor were armed in such a manner. Crossbows and swords? What sort of partisans even used those antiques anymore? Nevertheless, it was best he did not find out what it felt like to be on the receiving end of those weapons.

Dmitry walked out of the hut without complaining, hands raised above his head to signal his intent. Then he started speaking in a somewhat hushed and monotone manner. His gas mask made his voice sound a bit more robotic than it naturally should’ve been.

“Private Dmitry Tymchenko, or Dieter Schneider if you prefer my German name. I served the Pan Europan Empire’s 95th Armored Division as an infantryman prior to our divisions’ destruction by what I think were Russian partisans? Can’t be sure. They were too numerous and well armed to have been typical partisans. As for where we are?” He paused momentarily, taking a second to feel the sensation of the growing snowstorm around him. It was cold, but Tymchenko’s military fatigues kept him warm enough.

“This is the Eastern Ukraine, one of the Empire’s peripheral regions. It also happens to be where I grew up. If you need directions, there should be a map and compass inside my bag. I can point out generally where we are at the moment.”

Claudia on the other hand was still disoriented. She was tired from the hell she’d recently gone through, even if her wounds were now miraculously healed… wait what? Healed? How did that happen so quickly? Opening her eyes, she took a good ten seconds to process what had been said to her before trying to get up. Naturally, one of the medics gently prevented this from happening and urged her to stay still. The wounded commissar complied, if only because she had no energy to resist.

“The name is… Claudia Maier. I’m an Imperial Commissar... who was assigned to the 95th armored division to provide ideological oversight. We fought… partisans? I think they were partisans anyways. We should be in the Ukraine…” she finished before dozing off again.

Ukraine? Russians? These words held no meaning to the Phantoms. Code perhaps? Or were they truly in another land entirely? The corpses would support as such, they had never seen Ancients like the dead before, and from what the Wraiths and other Sankta said, the machinery of the foreigners were completely devoid of Originium. Strange indeed. Eurice decided that this was intel the higher ups were supposed to contemplate, not her. FrostNova and Strider would have to hear of this after she and the rest of Strider squad compared their findings. “Mask off, Dmitry,” Eurice spoke as the barks of a pack of dogs became audible. “We’re leaving.”

Southern-Belarus

High Command had decided in a unanimous decision, to move north from what was called the province of “Ukraine” to the province of “Belarus”. This Europan Empire was expansive, perhaps almost rivaling Ursus in its heights, but it was clear their conflict with the Russians had pushed the Imperials back. As such, in the interest of self-preservation, it was best that Reunion stay away from the Frontlines for now. The group of four hundred used the maps and compasses, and the GPS devices they looted from the battlefield to split into individual squads that approached the border in small groups. A band of four hundred would do nothing but attract unwanted attention after all. Their goal? Find shelter before the snowstorm got worse. It could be in caves in the wilderness, or abandoned villages and towns. Whatever the case, it was important the Phantoms didn’t die from exposure. While the Yetis were used to much worse, the same could not be said for their masked compatriots.

In one of those groups, what remained of Reunion High Command was keeping in regular contact with the various other cell leaders as they moved across the border. Eurice in particular, had the honor of guarding their two captives. The girl sat, still masked, looking straight at the Europans as she held a peculiar object in her hands. It was a bit scuffed and dirty, but it was undeniably a teddy bear. The Cautus held it up to her face, holding it with both hands as she could practically feel Dimitri’s glare. The Wraiths had said it was just a regular teddy bear, nothing suspicious. No bombs, no sensors, and no originium. Truth be told, it was kind of cute, but Eurice wasn’t going to say that out loud! It’d ruin the intimidating jail guard image she was trying to put up…

Still, squeezing its stomach a few more times couldn’t hurt, right?
…
As Strider’s squad moved away from the now abandoned village, they left behind them scenes probably all too familiar to the members of Reunion: those of destruction, death, and suffering. Such was the reality of the new Eastern Front, a conflict that would only grow in intensity as the days passed. In Europa, it would come to be known as the 2nd Russo-Imperial War; the Russians would refer to it as their people’s Great Trial.

[Sudbrazil]

Tʜᴇ Bʀᴀᴢɪʟɪᴀɴ Fᴇᴅᴇʀᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
Rio Grande do Sul, La Platan border
06:00, First of January, Anno Domini 3105 (Brazilian perspective)

---

A sea of clouds rolled through the forest, chased by a gentle drizzle which the birds on the barbed wire fence seemed to ignore. Such dense fog had not been seen in years, but the soldiers guarding the border did not mind it: they had infrared periscopes readily available. Occasionally the bushes would rustle and the silhouette of a bird or a mammal would present itself, glowing white hot. It was unlikely that a South American Concern invasion fleet would come through the Guaraní Republic, but the Republic was a Texarkanan puppet state, poised to stab Brazil in its back. The guards were sure to receive a light beating if they were ever caught asleep, such were the tensions between countries, but the crackling radio, warm blankets wrapped under camouflage ponchos and soothing birdsong under the rain made this difficult even as the air shook violently and distant roars filtered through their eardrums. Only one – a young corporal – remained wide awake, staring at the skies above.

The Air Force had been conducting maneuvers above them for a couple of hours, seemingly eager to start a war. Their fighters even ventured into foreign airspace once or twice without being challenged. Looking for a better view, the recruit abandoned his guardpost, supposedly to take a leak. It wasn't a minute before he barged back in.

“Lieutenant! The road’s cut in half!”

The fog had lifted. Where was once the La Platan Highway, ancient trees grew.

†

“This is Bishop 01, now maintaining altitude 10, heading 060, Mach 1.”

“Bishop 01, this is Assis. You are cleared for infiltration. Steer 040 and maintain present altitude.”

“Roger.”

Two fighter jets changed their course and penetrated into La Platan airspace. As his eight-winged plane sped over foreign lands Captain Alfonso Faria stole a glance at his wingman, then back at the landscape. Woods, plains, trees, shrubland. Woods, a clearing, trees, shrubland. Where were the interceptors or SAM platforms, all the warnings, laser, infrared and flare indicators that should be filling his cockpit, where were all the roads? The people? There was nothing but the steady noise of his engine and the feel of acceleration. His wingman did not dare to speak. It was maddening.

“Bishop 01,” said the calm air controller in his headset. “Target dead ahead 250.”

“No joy! Negative contact,” he replied between laboured breaths. “I say again, no joy!”

“Almost same position! Reduce speed!” The controller was becoming concerned. He could hear the professional tone fighting against a nervous accent. He was now over Buenos Aires, but the River Plate lay unmolested by concrete or port. There was no option but to patch his video feed to Southern Air Command.

“Goddamn! Where the hell’s the city Bishop?”

†

Palácio da Alvorada
Nova Brasília, Federal District
12:00, First of January, Anno Domini 3105 (Brazilian perspective)

---

The light was harsh on his face, and the camera equipment, though small, clashed severely against the classical decor and engraved wood panels. The High Marshal fidgeted slightly with his papers, occasionally crossing out or replacing a word from the speech, glancing at the buffoons behind the camera. He saw himself in its large round lens: a middle-aged man with middle-age features, brown hair, brown eyes, a somewhat sharp nose. There were probably a dozen like him in the crowd waiting outside the palace, outside his office.

There was a moment of agitation among the camera crew, and soon the transmission began, sending electronic signals to radios and computers throughout the continent. Hopefully his subjects would not shoot the messenger.

“It is with great pleasure that I come to you today. My fellow countrymen, we have been delivered from foreign clutches permanently! No longer shall we lack water or dignity. No longer shall we be under the burden of immoral men, men unknown to us. The age of Slaves and Merchants is over! From it we have been freed by what can only be called divine intervention.

However, God works in mysterious ways. It has pleased Him to deliver us by hurling Brazil, its land, its people, into a foreign world, a new world, surrounded by strange nations. I beseech you: strengthen your spirits, do not chase false hopes! This is not paradise, and there are many who will likely wish our demise. The years to come will require greater dedication and sacrifice. Nevertheless, rest assured that through our sweat Brazil will remain free, great and independent above all!

Let every Brazilian make himself, his ancestors, and his Fatherland proud!”

[Fascist Republic Of Bermuda]

National Diet Building
Tokyo, Empire of Japan

“Can someone please explain what the hell is going on?” Prime Minister Hakubun Shimomura put his hands to his temples.

It had been… a chaotic few hours, to say the least. Communications blackouts had sparked fears of thermonuclear war, but no nuclear launches had been detected. The phones to Germania and Washington had similarly gone dead. The entirety of the armed forces had gone from calm to outright panic in mere moments. The worst was feared: nuclear bombers were fueled, ICBM silos opened, nuclear submarines given the order to ready… but those in Tokyo, the only ones who could authorize firing the weapons, quickly seeking what had gone on. No early-warning systems had even hinted anything was coming. No cyber-attacks were reported.

It was something different. An outside-context problem that no one could possibly have thought about. GPS imagery had revealed its scope.

“The entire world has… shifted, I believe is the correct term, Shimomura-sama,” The man the Army had dragged looked like he had been yanked out of some dark corner Japan would rather forget: greasy hair that had obviously barely been combed for this meeting, ill-fitting, poorly-ironed uniform, pale white skin, deep bags under his eyes… “G-GPS images are forthcoming. I’ve got them to your tablets. All of you.” A deep bow to the entire group of assembled panel of experts, officers, and politicians, the most junior of whom probably outranked the strange man by several degrees. “There are some areas that are untouched, specifically in Southeast Asia-”

“We have managed to connect with our embassies in several nations of the Sphere, yes,” the Foreign Minister interrupted, causing the Army man to nervously sulk back to his seat, “It would appear our greatest loss was the Republic of China along with a number of nations on the periphery of the Sphere. Details in our tablets already”

“The Kempeitai has been in touch with local police departments: we will coordinate to suppress a mass panic,” a particularly shady-looking individual with the distinctive armband of the Kempeitai assured everybody. But the last two words hung heavy. Mass panic. That was never good. It could spell the end of many things: the stock market, peace, the current administration’s careers…

“We need to suppress this information until we can figure out a plan and a way to coordinate this with the rest of the Sphere,” Akira Amari of the Taisei Yokusankai’s reform bureaucrats spoke reason, earning more than a few nods and a general murmur of agreement. Shimomura hated the reform bureaucrats, personally, but that was a good idea. If they could coordinate, then the impact of this could be lessened-

“With respect, Amari-san,” A Navy cyberwarfare expert politely spoke up, seeming to pause to swallow a lump in his throat at the sudden death glare half the room was giving him, “We cannot control the internet. Word is already out.”

Shimomura took a deep breath, clenched his jaw. And kicked the table. Once. Twice. Three times, before collapsing into his chair. The rest of the gathered experts looked on with concern as the prime minister uttered the question on everyone’s minds:

“What the hell are we going to do about this?”

Marunouchi District
Tokyo, Empire of Japan

China was supposed to be a safe investment.

It was large enough that one could easily invest in a number of plantations across the country, so if there’s a drought in, say, Guangxi, it does not affect the Yellow River Basin. A simple system. But not one prepared for the entire country going dark overnight, the entire world shifting in the blink of an eye. Who could have predicted this? Who?

Haruki Ishiwata swallowed down a throatful of bile as he stared blankly at the letter in his hands. He was sitting in his office, like he always had: the office was a strange thing, traditionally-styled but for the office desk, all the while being in one of the most modern skyscrapers in Tokyo. He had put his life into investments: and they should have paid off! How could he go home and face his wife, his children? How could he look into Suki’s eyes and tell her that the family had nothing? That the investments had not merely faltered, but vanished to the wind?

No. He couldn’t. He was a coward. A fool. And so he had written out the letter- a series of apologies, reassurances, and goodbyes to everybody. It broke his heart to imagine what would happen. But at least, this way, the life insurance will provide a new start that he would simply be unable to provide.

He sealed the letter inside its envelope. Placed it down, got up, and staggered towards the window. Others apparently had the same idea: he could see those in the building across from him, falling like stones. He creaked open the window. The rush of cool morning air nearly dissuaded him.

Maybe he could rebuild? Investments were temporary, but maybe… his eldest was in the Navy, it would disrupt her too much… no. This was the only way he could redeem himself. He had failed: failed his employer, failed his family, failed himself… and the only way was gyokusai. He almost smiled at the idea that he was a shattered jewel.

He took a step forward into nothingness, and fell.

[Newne Carriebean7]

Istanbul
Sublime Porte, Ottoman Empire
January 1st, 1980

If there was one person you would not want to take the place of, besides the normal answers of “Jefferson Davis at Waterloo” for the historically illiterate and the “hitler in berlin” for those that had seen the movie Downfall or one of the many ranting moustached parodies of it, it would have been the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

Historically the “fucking sick man” of Europe, the Ottomans never really shook that stigma off. Sure they had fought Nicholas II to a standstill in the last world war, but almost anyone could beat Nicholas to an even truce, so that wasn't really an accomplishment. The sultan has balanced nationalist belligerency with the army and hardline nationalists, entertaining them at his vast palaces and portes throughout the country. Paradoxically, he also met with the local governors, taking photos of him downing shots of “piss beer” to rally support behind the common man. (besides his botched attempt to liquify a sheep in boiling vegetable bathwater, of course, that doesn't count.) He would attend military parades, speeches filled to the brim with boisterous poppycock and army bullshit that would make even the most jingoistic general start to have second thoughts.

Meeting with those closer to him, his many personal servants had advice and chilly drinks served onto them, in stark contrast with the also personal whippings, caning and outright murder he did with the local slavers. Speaking of the slavers, the Sultan now stares out at a sea of white looking faces, smiling and wheeling cards as tobacco smoke lazily rises in the air. Tapping on the microphone set up on top of the gallery, he wields a slight grin on his face in getting the local orchestra’s attention, who stop with the snappy beats of smooth jazz intertwined with traditional arabic singing, a personal request from the foreign minister.

“Thank you Billy Blythe, much obliged. Can we all give the amazing jazz a hand, c’mon everyone, let’s hear some hollas.”
The gathered members, the least fashionable amongst them wearing a simple three piece suit and fanciful top hat to compensate, all politely obliged with a sound of slight cheering in the polite, nobility style of the day and age. As the light clapping continued for the band, who by now had all gathered momentarily on the stage below for a ceremonial bow, Blythe shot his majesty a sly wink, to which he replied with a curt nod.
“Now, Billy Blythe has been a good, good friend of mine for, what-” He abruptly looked at his watch and smiled at the crowd for such a corny joke.
“Five minutes? A half hour?” Light chuckles ememenated from the gathered and Blythe’s face turned red with embarrassment, but with a smile fixed on the man’s features.
“Anyways, Mr. Blythe has been a good friend of mine. I may have not known him long, but I’m sure he’s harmless. You dont bite do you Mr. Blythe?”
“No sir.”
“Good. I’d have to muzzle you then. He is what makes this country great. So much talent and expertise at such a young age. Only ninety four.”
A few more forced cans of laughter from an increasingly rich crowd followed, with a slight symphony of coughs.
“Now, we are gathered here not just to entertain my stand up or catskill routine, but to talk about labor, specifically your labor. The amount of slaves within the country total 30% of the population. That means twelve million bodies. Twelve million unskilled or skilled laborers working for nothing. It also means you don’t have to pay them. I have heard gripes from some of you that your slaves are gittin’ uppity at’cha. I am here to put to rest your uppity property by sayin’ hippity hoppity your ass is my propertee. I’m sure you all know, but we have to explain out anyways for those folks who don't tell a politician from the tax man and call it all a commie conspiracy anyhow.
Speakin’ of consperasees, I have good word from allah and the lord almighty that there has been a ‘catostrophic event that happened’ y’know, slave market’s imploding and shit like that. I’m here to keep you calm and just say that something may have happened, and something may have not happened. It’s hard to say at the moment. We’ll keep you in the loop with your economic futures. How’s about this, I buy you all a slave.

Hell, I’m sure mister tight-ass finance wont give a damn anyhow. We’ve got plenty of black gold to cover such an endeavour. Unfortunately, there are calls from those radical hippie commie queers that want to ‘abolish’ slavery for ‘human rights’ and ‘moral decency’. I ask them this, is is morally decent to have twelve million souls out on the streets and the cities of the Ottoman Empire, increasing crime and murder just so they can have a warm place to stay or a meal to eat?

Slavery is the most justified, kind and only befittin place for the negro race. Oh, It’s not just the negros, it’s the mixed, the ethnically incompetent, the ethnically bankrupt and the ethnically disturbed. Who’s to argue the slave trade’s a white man’s sport and a black man’s burden? They way I see it the opposite can just as easily happen. You could have rich, black plantation owners with hundreds of white laborers stretching for multiple generations. Slavery can be applied to both sides, and the best part of it is, we make money either way!

The Ottoman Empire’s backbone is off of these wonderful negro laborers. There are those that argue that slavery would ‘die out’ or it would eventually ‘be restricted to agriculture’. I call bull and or shit on such blatant accusations. The negro, for his racial inferiority, can be molded for both city and farm work, same as many other of the inferior races. If we were to restrict the movement of slaves to work only on the farms, that leaves out massive profit margins for work in the cities and industrialized areas of the Ottoman Empire.

Poor Baghdad, her factories empty, and beholden Soddom and Gomorra, still not smitten by God. I know I shouldn't alienate the planter aristocracy, but the manufacturing guilds need their fresh bodies too damn it! The plantations will get more than their fair share of negros to maintain corn and, uh, wheat production. After all, these planters feed us. I promise to organize a system of local outreach programs to have the locals see where their food grows. Nothing out of the ordinary, just some run of the mill propaganda for the local radio and boob tubes. Your position will continue to be secure with me. All I ask is that you back your Sultan, and your Sultan shall back you. Thank you, Now I’m off to meet with other constituents, I wonder if this is what politics feels like?”

Headquarters of the Central Committee
Damascus, Syria

The amount of people that would go 'what the fuck just happened' skyrocketed after the new year. While National Propaganda spun the story simply as "your cousin lenny binge drinking too much" the real effects of such a change shook the political elite of the Ottoman Empire. The political establishment was now scrambling for a meeting on how to ensure their political position. Grand Vizier Keskin Kensin Kennedie was one such person who had been struggling to put on a tie while drinking alka-seltzer to make his headache, caused from excessive binge drinking in ringing in the new year, at least subside scarcely a few hours ago in the dark.

The imposing yet timeless and charming castle town jutted out like a sore thumb among a ramshackle village of thatch huts and clay-mud structures that surrounded the purported evil villain's lair. To make the atmosphere all the more welcoming to plucky, would-be heroes and local adventurers with some bravado left in them, cackling crashes of thunder and blisteringly bright lighting filled the air with their lights and sounds. While nominally the Central Committee was the highest organ in political power, such efforts were blindsided by the local governors, the military and the foreign minister/president sultan of the presidium Wilhelmina Packard. While they didn't lack any power and were far from a rubber stamp, their influence among Sultan Jalmark Fuslar IV had increasingly diminished. This wasn't helped by the fact of 80 year old Ellison D. Smith frequently fought with the sultan.

It was under this instance that the meeting began. The old fat southern politician sat down and scowled at the five members of the sultan's harem that were assigned seats.
"Buncha panzy ass boys in tights." Smith uttered under his breath, clutching a cigar tightly in his hands. Smith looked around the room for more "conservative" allies, and saw the five elderly Imams enter the room. Osama Bin-Tillmen flashed a toothy grin to Smith, who's mouth curled into a smile for the first time since he got to the meeting, albeit still with a cigar in his mouth. The remaining four military members hastily filed into the room one after the other, with Smith scowling at his other allies.
'You're late. Scotch anyone?" He chastised them while reaching for a bottle of scotch from under the table. The Imam's all motioned for drinks, and Smith threw the bottle at the Imam he figured was paying the most attention. He was almost right as the religious rapscallion nearly fumbled with the boozing beverage like a fucking football.
Once everyone was satisfyingly boozed and filled with their morning "orange juice" of their liking, the meeting got underway. Ellison D. Smith soon pounded the table and repeated the words that were on everyone's mind.
"What the tarnational transdimentional satanic hell just happened?! One minute, we're winning the jihad against the infidels of Austria-Hungary and the East India Company Conglomerate and the next I've lost contact with hundreds of our front line boys with the fez cap! Shit!"
"Cool your nonexistent tits there Smith. I'm sure there's a reasonable, if peculiar explanation to all of this. Though you've got a reason to be upset. Hell we're all upset!" The Grand Vizier barked at the South Carolinian caliphate member.

Smith calmed down ever so slighty, face still red, but not as much color was there as it was before. His voice dropped an octave from the high pitched fierce barking he had been booming out. His words were slightly slurred with the much needed alcohol now flowing through his bloodstream.
"A-Right. I shouldn't raise a fuss just because the gates of heaven and hell opened up for a second and we had the goddamned or-rola borealis on our asses. If I cant get mad at that what can I get mad at?"
"You can get mad with us together."
Smith scowled at the thought before returning to a more neutral face after a much needed puff of his thick cigar.
"That, I can do. Now let's discuss our options. Do we know what happened?"
"No."
"Well, do we know how it happened?"
"No."
"Why it happe-I'm just going to guess that you're going to say no."
"You'd be right. We havent the foggiest clue, though we've reported that most of the Ottoman Empire made it."
"Define Most, what parts of it fucked off-"
"Well, the Egyptian Colonies, the Trans-siberian Khanate, the Inner Mongolian Caliphate Autonomous Reigon, the Yangzhe Islamic State, the Somalian Confederation of Allah and the province of Bulgaria."
"We have nothing in Africa?"
"Apparently not. We've got the Levant still."
"The Suez?"
The Grand Vizier shook his head at Smith.
"Well what about that shitty Island no-one cares about?"
"I'm sorry but you'll have to define shitty island. That could be any fucking sand bar in the middle of the ocean."
"SighPrus."
"You mean Cyprus, right?"
"Goddammit is my South Carolina drawl that fucking thick for you buttheads?!"
"Apparently."
Ellison D. Smith thought of sticking his still lit cigar into the eye of Kensin, but restrained himself from doing it.
"Y-You drive me fucking nuts you know that?!"
"I'm damned proud of it too. Care to for me to continue with what we dont have?"
"I'd rather us hear about what we do have, if it's alright with your fucking ass."
Kensin's mouth lifted into a sly shit eating grin before grabbing a document that had been on the oak table where the members had gathered.
"Both North and South Arabia, the UPK, Mesopotamia, Syria now with 100% less Cyprus, the Levant and Turkey."
One of the military generals then perked up at the news.
"Should we go on full alert? I'd have the Tiger-72s and T-43s mobilized within a few hours."
"Well why the fuck havent we bothered to do that already, got your thumb up your ass or something? Yes, mobilize the Tigers and the T-whatever, you have my blessing!"
Imam Osama Bin-Tillmen quickly cut in.
"That would be my prerogative, Mr. Smith."
"Do we have your blessing then, Saint Tillmen?"
"Yes, the good word of allah declares the nation must be vigilant in these trying times."
Ellison D. Smith downed another glass of whiskey and took a long, slow puff of his cigar, cradling the thing like a baby before turning to a wall, thinking there was a studio audience behind him to say a dramatic repeat of a line.

"Vigilant indeed, Saint Tillmen. Vigilant indeed."

[Alaroma]

Atlas with Annie and Guntur

What happened when you put a Democratic Socialist and a Nationalist on the same show? The Internet News Show ‘Atlas’. Considering how “normal” this show looks, it’s politics aren’t exactly what you’d hear on most boomer shows on the waves, but that was fine. It’s two hosts are Annie Ackerman and Guntur Batubara.

“Guntur, Gottberg has had a pretty busy first 56 days in office to her credit. Some for good, some for your typical Christian signaling. Gotta say, these recent reports on infrastructure are sounding promising. “ Annie said as she was looking down, her eyes scanning her show transcript and taking a sip of coffee.

“Oh definitely, the plans looking about expanding infrastructure in rural areas is something that people will appreciate. You look at stats for infant mortality with women in these areas for example, and it’s higher than in the cities and suburbs. Her pledge to make 100 percent internet access is something that has honestly been a long time coming too. It’s the 2020s, these people need the internet.” Guntur said in agreement as he sipped his own coffee.

“That’s actually what I have for my radar today, and frankly my contacts on capital hill are super excited about this bill. The Christian Democrats are in essence guaranteed a good run next election if this bill passes. People are gonna see their roads paved, and their internet improved, and given access to it when they didn’t before. Honestly Gottberg could be in a fairly good position next election.” Annie said candidly.

“Well either way, I think- uhhhh, hey, Annie. You seeing what’s going on with the stock market?” Guntur said, with a bit of a start.

Looking at her computer, she shook her head. Typing something in, she began “No, what’s going o-.............Jesus, what happened?” What happened was that the stock market lost 15% of its value in 13 minutes.

“I’m looking through social media and uhhh. You’re not gonna believe this. People are saying it’s another Phenomenal Event. Like the one in the 1930s. People have lost contact with the outside world, business operations overseas are gone, some cities might be missing. It’s……” Guntur began, but couldn’t finish. It was the beginning of a new nightmare for the Confederacy.

The Emergency Room

In the Crisis Room, a row of high ranking officials from the military and government either were sitting down or calling in through the internet. Walking into the room, everyone stood to attention to the Chancellor as she took her spot at the end of the table. At the long table, a variety of faces stared down at her with mixtures of calm and nervousness.

Along the walls, paintings of historic events of people hung. The most prominent of the paintings was of Wilhelm Boykin lifting up a little girl. It was of the man in his later years, after his 25 years or so in office. That aside, there was a painting of the Golden Bridge after its completion.

The woman at the center of it all was in her early 40s, and at the beginning of her term. The curly haired chancellor’s eyes looked all over the men and women in the room, her eyes being those of anxiety. This meeting was an emergency one if there ever was one. Many were on vacation when the crisis hit. It was the new year after all, and the capital had been quieter than usual the morning of the event.

Anna had just came in from a report in her office, and the economic news was catastrophic. The Texan Media was having a freak out, thus so was Texan social media. Could you blame them though? It was as if the apocalypse was here.

Raising her hand to signal for everyone to sit, they did. “Minister Blomberg, tell me, what’s the defensive capacity of our nation right now?”

The old Congressional veteran, and minister of defense, opened up some files before him. “Well most of our assets remain intact, though oddly enough others got transported from overseas to various areas in the Confederacy. Ma’am, I’m asking for permission to put the Military into defcon 2. That’s the recommendation I’ve been given by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Anna nodded without thinking, and of course she would. The country was in crisis, and there was no guarantees of what would happen.

“That’s not it ma’am, there’s another thing.” Minister Blomberg said, before pointing a remote at one of the room’s TVs. On it came various images of various areas, all apparently devoid of human beings.

“The Eastern Caribbean and the Bahamas are as of now empty. It would be more than prudent for local forces to assert authority over them, and set up Jaeger systems to extend our reach in the area. It will also lock in the Caribbean while we figure out what’s going on with Panama.” He said, before extending some proposals for initial actions by the Confederate Military.

Meanwhile Minister Luther of agriculture also piped in. “Chancellor Gottberg, it’s also prudent we begin water rationing and rationing for food immediately. We are lacking water supplies, rather seriously. But…….we don’t have to for long. The Great Lakes, Winnipeg Lake, and some western parts of former Canada remain open.”

Anna scratched her head, nodding at the concerns. “So we need to reassert our authority over various water resources, and we need to ensure our strategic situation is secure……...while the economy collapses.”

“Well, in essence, yes. Also…….. there’s another problem. Across the Eastern Border, strange animals and monstrosities are crossing according to some reports. And according to some tests and general scouting, the East appears to be a radiated wasteland.” Minister Blomberg said, providing pictures of various Fallout creatures collected so far.

The picture on the screen, the room produced a variety of dismayed looks. “Christ almighty, what is….. whatever it is, hunt them down, capture them, it frankly doesn’t matter. They just can’t be allowed to roam free. Mobilize local militia units to assist.” Anna said, but eventually they came across pictures of Deathclaws.

Without saying much, Blomberg simply noted “The hunt is on, it seems.” However that wasn’t finished. He began producing pictures of human settlements taken by drones.

“People actually live there?” The Minister of the Economy said shocker. “Yes they do, and it is only
Prudent we establish contact. Expeditions into this shithole will be necessary l. But I think it’s obvious where our major concerns lay.” Blomberg said, before shifting to the monitor pictures to that of the mysterious nation southwards and it’s cities.

“Whoever they are-“ Minister of Foreign Affairs said, correcting the position of his glasses for, “it’s only prudent we prepare to go meet them. Better to prevent any misunderstandings sooner rather than later. Preparations for trips to Europe are of course necessary as well. Either way, the restablishment of comms are necessary.”

“Uhhhh, is it just me, or are we forgetting the all important economic response? Cause we’re probably about to have an unusual experiment with a command economy at this rate.” The Minister of the Economy interjected. The competing interests in the room ever more diligent.

12 Miles into the Wasteland

Sergeant Lee looked with wild eyes as her E4 shot out the window at the large reptilian creature. As it turns out, what was known locally as a “Death Claw.” As it turns out, the thing was incredibly dangerous. Well, it would be, but when you’re in a recon vehicle equipped with a minigun, it feels less dangerous.

“What the fuck, it’s literally soaking up bullets!” Corporal Lowenburg screamed, but you couldn’t really hear him through the bursts of his minigun. The veichle they were in, along with an accompanying veichle that carried the rest of the squad drove erratically as they chased the monster down. The Deathclaw had tried to be the predator, but it soon found it was the prey of this particular unit.

After another minute or two, the beast felled into the grasslands surroundings the destroyed highway the squad had been traversing on. Not to be safe, the emptied a few seconds more of fire into the beast. After that though, they were fairly certain it was dead.

Sticking her head out the window, Sergeant Lee’s eyes squinted at the dead beast. Nodding in satisfaction, she spat out the window. “We need more drone cover, and we’re not supposed to be a hunting expedition after all. Uhhhh, Specialist Jaeger. You record all that?”

The man on the other vehicle's minigun patted his helmet, before an affirmative “Yes ma’am. And if I might add-“ he began, before being cut off.

“No, you may not add. We need to get on the road and finish our trip to this settlement we’ve been told about. So put on your own trashy 70s rock, and shut up. And while you’re at it, send that video to command. They want as much info as we can give them, and taking down……..whatever the fuck that was is probably of no small concern.” Lee said, before leaning forward and patting the driver’s shoulder. “Drive.”

With that, they were off. And of course Jaeger began playing music, but it wasn’t Texan music. It was fucking American Music.

“Cause I'm just a teenage dirtbag baby
Yeah, I'm just a teenage dirtbag baby
Listen to Iron Maiden baby with me
Ooohoo Hoo Hooooooo”

Lee groaned, shaking her head. The members of her squad seemed to share the sentiment. But fair was fair, and he controlled the music this mission. But it would be better if you could at least understand the music.

[Europa Undivided]

The Chinese Commonwealth

Temporal Displacement

Orbit, Heavenly Bastion Station

"Hello, hello?"

"Anything?"

"Nothing."

The thirty astronauts in the space station shuddered. A few moments ago, they were in radio contact with the incoming French craft that was going to dock with the station. Now, they had lost all contact with the Chercheur D'étoiles, and all attempts to radio in with the other space stations that were scattered through orbit failed, returning nothing but white noise and utter silence. The only other piece of space infratructure that answered the astronauts' frantic attempts to contact their fellow humans was the other station built by the Chinese Commonwealth that flew suspended in orbit over the North American continent, the Blazing Phoenix. Apparently, all scans of the Earth had shifted dramatically, and the ever so familiar layout of city lights that the astronauts had always seen whenever they passed over at night had changed. Some places went dark, while others were shining more brightly than they ever should have. Thankfully, all of the Commonwealth's satellites had survived whatever the hell happened fully intact, and were now transmitting photos to the space stations to be viewed by the astronauts.

What they saw at this time was impossible, madness, even. A portion of Canada was nought more than a burning ruin; oddly enough, that area was the same size as Germany. Vague humanoid figures seems to shamble across the ruins, but the photos were not enough to confirm anything in that regard.

Other strange things would be in order, though. Europe had what looked like to be flying airships of some kind, held aloft by glowing machinery below them. Russia seemed to another terrible place; it looked very destitute.

What a relief it was then, when radio transmissions started to filter in. Most numerous of them were frequencies from the Chinese Commonwealth itself, and there a lot of confusion down there. Floating Fortresses that were targeting incoming vessels that sought to get past the Commonwealth's defences found their prey to disappear entirely, replaced by nothing but the open ocean. Sky Wings and Wind Drakes chasing after American aircraft lost their targets as well; it was as if they were never there. It would seem that the Commonwealth had been sent away from the Third World War.

However, other transmissions filtered in as well. These were strange, though. There were mentions of the "Europan Empire" and "the Ottoman Empire" being thrown around the airwaves, and it even looked like Japan here was completely different.

Shenzhen
The Parliament Building

"What... the hell?"

An hour had just passed after the sky turned purple, leaving nothing but confusion in the mind of quite literally everyone. The Commonwealth was in the middle of the Third World War, and now, it seemed that everything had just stopped. The Parliament, the Prime Minister, and the President had immediately convened through holographic conference, and were now reviewing what had just happened to their country... and the world.

"Nothing? As in nothing?"

"Yes, Mr. President.", the secretary of communications admitted. "All phones to Moscow and Washington are not returning. The entire enemy invasion that had hit Formosa had just disappeared, but... we lost contact with the island. We are... isolated. The Blazing Phoenix and Heavenly Bastion report drastic changes all over the world, except for us. The Commonwealth has remained constant, but everywhere else is... strange."

"What do you mean?"

"Uhm... one of our more eccentric scientists theorized that the country and all of its assets were transported to another Earth..."

"That's ridiculous! What is this, a bad sci fi movie?!"

The President, however, help up his hand, imploring the MP's to silence. "I suggest that we send scout missions all over the globe, ascertain what has changed and what happened. When we are sure, that is when we decide to do something drastic. For now, we are to keep the population calm. We need to know... everything."

[Hastiaka]

---

The United Nations
Oceania Administrative Zone | Canberra, Australia
UN Emergency Environmental Conference
2400 Hours Earlier

A white shuttle of sleek design began its descent towards a landing pad outside of the Parliament House in Canberra. A matte gray seal of the United Nations is etched on its wings with a faint blue light strip at its edges. This shuttle was no ordinary transport- it was UN One. Armed with the most advanced countermeasures known to man, it is said to be able to counter an entire salvo of torpedoes from a Corvette-class ship. Inside the shuttle was UN Secretary-General Chrisjen Avasarala and UNN Fleet Commander Michael Souther.

"UN One, you're cleared for landing."

The shuttle then landed safely. Chrisjen and Souther disembarked and were flanked by UN Secret Service heading to the venue. Above them, several surveillance drones were monitoring the sky, the ground level and seismic activity below them. Other members of the UN Security Council were already inside the Parliament House and were waiting for the two to arrive. It had been several days since the portals to the other worlds were opened and corporations have been lining up to secure rights and charters for these new worlds. Apparently, this had led to a breakthrough in environmental preservation, reclamation and possibly, infestation.

Inside, the people have already gathered and were waiting for Chrisjen and Souther. Upon arrival, the two were shown to their seats and an Afro-Australian woman entered the stage and began to approach the podium. Behind her, images of exoplanes from drones and rovers were shown- flora and fauna seen unlike anything before. The entire conference was astonished, with Chrisjen having a curious look on her face. Shortly after, the woman began to speak and identified her as UN ERA Secretary Wesley Mays.

"Today, we face an unprecedented situation. Earth is no longer the sole inhabitable planet in the visible universe. We have hundreds of new planets ripe for colonization. The UN Environmental Regulating Agency has deemed that we can possibly both benefit and suffer from these new prospect lands. The UN ERA has created a system of classifying endemic species and floras unique to an exoplanet. Starting with Environmental Risk level Zero or ER-0, the classified flora and fauna are compatible with Earth and can be healthily sustained. These flora and fauna poses no threat as an invasive species and can be introduced as a mass-production crop or food source. ER-1 means that classified species may be introduced to Earth albeit on a more limited scope more specifically in enclosed reservations, ER-2 signifies strict containment measures for flora and fauna believed to have medical properties and ER-3 is a total non-negotiable ban and ecosystem-threatening."

The presentation continued for a few more minutes. Avasarala began taking notes and looked at the footnotes of the presentation in her tablet screen. As she was swiping to see more images the power turned suddenly off. Now this was something that's never have had happened before- not here in Canberra, nor in the Oceania Administrative Zone. It's been centuries since the last power outage on a major political and population center on Earth. It stayed this way for four whole minutes- the longest outage in Oceania since the closing years of the 21st century. Then, the power came back on.

"Souther, something's wrong, I can fucking feel it." Avasarala leaned at Souther, airing her concerns.

"Nothing to worry about, it's just a short outage." Souther replied, trying to reassure her.

"Your grandparents weren't probably even born the last time an outage hit a major city. Doesn't this raise an eyebrow?" Avasarala crossed her arms and shrugged.

Souther let out an exasperated sigh and took out his comms, "Madam Secretary-General, I checked with the UN Strategic Command just before we landed, there were no oddities in the Solar System. Hell, the UNN Home Fleet is in orbit. But, If you insist, I'll call Cheyenne Mountain." Souther opened his comms and set up a direct secured link to UN Strategic Command in Cheyenne Mountain.

"UN Strategic Command, this is UNN Fleet Commander Michael Souther. Status report." Souther said, confidently. A few seconds passed and no one replied. Souther tilted his head and narrowed his eyes.

"UN Strategic Command - Cheyenne Mountain, this is UNN Fleet Commander Michael Souther, please respond." Souther repeated only to be replied with radio silence. Souther turned his gaze to Avasarala and let out a high-pitched laughter. "This... this must be a mistake." he anxiously smiled at her.

Souther changed channels and contacted UN Military Command - Theater Oceania. "UN Military Command Oceania, this is UNN Fleet Commander Michael Souther, what the hell just happened? I can't get a hold of Cheyenne Mountain!" Souther held his breath.

"UNN Fleet Commander Souther, this is UN Field Marshall Chelsea Gray of Theater Oceania. We just lost contact with all the other UN Military Command Theaters a few minutes ago. We lost all contact with both New York and Luna. We've activated our aerospace defense grid as per protocol. Our strategic long-range reconnaissance planes just took off a minute ago , results would be- Oh my God... "

"Field Marshall Gray, are you there? Can you hear me?" Souther said, confused.

There was a pause. Then suddenly- "Yes, I'm here Commander Souther... It's just that... It's all back... the lost lands, the flooded territories... they're all back! A UN Weather Satellite just did a full orbit a few seconds ago, it's not just Australia, it's the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa! The ice caps are back! Jesus Christ... what's happening?"

---

UN Military Command - Theater Oceania
UNMC Base Harman
2400 Hours Later

It appeared shortly after that the entire Oceania Administrative Zone has arrived somewhere entirely new. It took several orbits of spy satellites and long-range frequency receivers to confirm that they were in an entirely new planet albeit similar to Earth and were not alone. This prompted an emergency action by the members of the UN Security Council including the Secretary-General to temporarily declare Martial Law in the United Nations. From what the intelligence branch could gather, the Southeast Asian bloc up north, had been occupied by what seems to be a 21st-century era Japanese Empire and that the Americas were occupied by different groups of different origins. The physicists and scientists present in Oceania were all gathered overnight and all had come to the conclusion that an anomaly in space-time and dimensions were responsible for transporting the entire Oceania territory to a virgin and pure Earth hence the normalization of the sea-levels and restoration of the ice-caps.

Over a period of twenty four hours, the UN Military Command was mobilized to guard the maritime territorial waters and the airspace. The UN Defense Grid was activated and the various defense points were quickly manned by the UN Marine Corps. Parts of the UNN Home Fleet orbiting above Canberra during the event was also transported into this new world. For precaution, the UNN battleships were ordered to land on the ground with the Truman-class flagship UNN John F. Kennedy staying up on an orbital dry-dock for preventive measures in case a space-based attack would be launched against the UN. After collecting bare information from the scattered frequencies and satellite communications from the other entities, the UN would broadcast a planet-wide comms using all known frequencies and communications platforms.

An entire team of media production staff were dispatched to set-up a replica of the UN Secretary-General's New York office in an empty studio at UNMC Base Harman. The live address began with the playing of the de-facto UN anthem accompanied with a timelapse of the UN history starting from the Second World War, to the formation of the UN, to the establishment of colonies in the belt. Then, it fades into a broadcast of the UN Secretary-General Chrisjen Avasarala.

In her unique raspy voice, Chrisjen began her address.

"My fellow citizens of Earth, This is Chrisjen Avasarala, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Not too long ago, the Oceania Administrative Zone of where we are currently in, was transported through space and time into an untouched Earth. This explains the sudden appearance of lands in some coastal areas of Australia and New Zealand. Do not worry, your government- the United Nations has already assessed the situation and has already mobilized contingencies to deal with the situation we find ourselves in. As of now, to conserve resources, we are currently suspending welfare benefits for people who belong to a certain income group and instead use the funds to aggressively invest in domestic agricultural operations. As of this moment, civil liberties will not be suspended. I repeat, civil liberties will not be responded. There will be no declarations of Martial Law in the near future. However, military units will be more visible in cities and population centers. In addition, the UN Commission on Human Rights will deploy field agents to ensure that your rights will be respected. Please report to UNCHR agents with full documentation if you encounter any acts of aggression.

Now, we have observed that there are other entities other than our own present in the world. This is addressed to them; We do not know who or what you are but this address is broadcasted on all known frequencies. But remember this: Earth is under the jurisdiction of the United Nations. All resolutions established and passed by the UN General Assembly and Security Councils will be in effect. The Court of Justice will prosecute any crimes against humanities should it be the case. Nevertheless, the United Nations will provide humanitarian aid through the UN Humanitarian Agency should it be requested. We hope that this anomaly is only temporary and we will be returned to our original dimension. Should anyone threaten the freedom and independence of the United Nations, it will be met with force."

[Democratic East-Asia]

Note: This happens 4 days after the initial Russian attack. It is mostly disconnected to events in other foreign nations.

General HQ, Fredericksburg, Lower Galicia, January 5th, Year 0

“Is everyone here?” PM Frahm looked at the room of assembled generals, nobles, and a few members of the royal family. “Good, I’ll let General von Kugel take it from here.”

“I assume everyone here knows why we’re holding this meeting?” Kugel asked nobody in particular. “Very well, I shall begin.”

“Is it about the arms review session the 5th army is supposed to hold tomorrow?” A bored looking noble asked, clearly oblivious to the obvious.

“No you overgrown oaf, this is about the goddamn war with the Russians,” Kugel shook his head out of disappointment. “The next person to ask an idiotic question will be booted out of this meeting.”

There were a few moments of silence before Kugel continued. A total of maybe a dozen ranked individuals (including Air Marshal Balbo, Goering, and a few others) and six observers (including Crown Princess Katarina and 2nd Princess Euphemia) were present. It was all that was needed anyways.

“Can anyone give a summary of the current situation our forces find themselves in over in the East?” Klugel asked the assembled generals.

“From what we know based on field reports, satellite data, and data collected by our airforce, the slavs field an army anywhere from 7-10 million strong… though this could be underestimating their strength. They’ve attacked us on all fronts of our new Eastern border, with a particularly large focus on Ukraine,” a bespectacled general began. “Our own forces were pushed back during the first few days of the assault, primarily owing to the slavs’ overwhelming display of artillery and sheer numbers. The extensive use of chemical weapons on all fronts has caused in excess of… 35,700 casualties up to this point. Combat related casualties are far higher, possibly close to 100,000.”

“Holy shit, how in the world have losses been so high?” Someone else exclaimed.

“Again, we were taken completely by surprise, hence the high losses. Many of our divisions weren’t even fully organized when their assault began,” the glasses-wearing general replied. Kugel reminded himself that the general was one “George Hess” .

“Of course, it should be noted that the losses taken by the Russians were far higher than our own. Despite relative disorganization, our vastly superior weapons and vehicles did their fair share of work,” Hess noted.

“Well that still doesn’t address any of the larger problems we have at the moment,” Kugel pointed towards an animated map of the front of the room. “We’re drastically outnumbered on all fronts, and some of our divisions aren’t even properly equipped for the winter. And apparently the Ukrainians are rising up, again. The current frontlines are far from defensible, so I suggest falling back to positions closer to the Dnieper,” he drew a few lines on the map with a mouse (from his laptop). “Reinforcements from the Balkans should be arriving by the day in order to assist defensive efforts in holding the region.”

“What about Crimea? We managed to fight off Russian attempts to cross from the east… but given the current overlay of the rivers… it’s likely the Russians will reach the peninsula within a week or two at most,” a third general chimed in.

“Order our naval assets stationed at Budjak to move out immediately. It’s very likely the battleships and their heavy guns will be needed for the defense of Crimea,” Hess replied. “And make sure at least 50,000 marines make it to Crimea by the end of this week.”

“Should defending Crimea really be a priority?” Princess Katarina interjected. “I mean, sure, the region’s well known for its tourism… but the naval port there isn’t even particularly large. By defending Crimea we might as well be sapping strength from the defense of the Ukraine as a whole.”

“On the other hand, defending Crimea would allow us to use the region as a possible staging ground in the future, and forces the Russians to send soldiers to take it. We shall greet them with full salvos from our naval artillery,” the third general smiled. “They’ll never see it coming!”

“Alright, so we have a general idea for what our plan in regards to the Ukraine shall be: fall back across all fronts, reestablish defensive lines at the Dnieper and fortify Kiev, and move in forces to support the Crimea garrison. Seems plausible for the time being,” Kugel noted. “Now moving on: Belorussia.”

“General Jeremiah Heshel believes his two armies: the 3rd and 24th, alongside those two unattached corps he was assigned should be fine in holding off the Russians, but I have my doubts. Heshel has approximately 700,000 troops facing what we believe are over 3 million Russians,” Hess sighed. “While I don’t doubt Heschel’s ability in fighting a defensive war… the sheer number of Russians means that the chance of them achieving a breakthrough in at least one sector has… risen greatly. I personally recommend we send him an order to fall back.”

“Hmmm… there’s not too much we can do about that other than falling back… but Heshel has already established a large part of his line along the Dnieper. Retreating would be yielding that favorable position to the enemy,” Kugel retorted. “Heshel must hold. We can redirect some of our retreating units in the Baltics there if necessary, as well as incoming reinforcements from Western Europe. As for the Baltics? Order our troops in Estonia to reposition themselves into Latvia. The defense line at Narva has held up to this day but it won’t stand forever.”

“General! What about the civilians? There are millions of Imperial citizens who live in the Baltic states who’d be at great risk if the Russians occupy the region,” Euphemia decided to speak up. “We’ve already received reports from survivors of Russian atrocities. They’re apparently killing anyone who seems to be German.”

"I'll call for the navy to arrange for evacuations," Kugel said.

“Utterly barbaric,” the third general (He will finally have a name: that being “Karl Schneller”) said with clear disgust, “but fitting for the subhuman animals they are. We ought to pay them back tenfold.”

“I don’t disagree, but it would be foolhardy for us to act without full intelligence of the Russians’ whereabouts and capabilities. If anything, it would be best for us to strengthen our own defense grids before going all out with the strategic weapons,” Hess was quick to add. “This of course brings up the most pressing question of all: how do we respond to their use of chemical weapons? I need not remind everyone here that the Russians used vast quantities of gas against our soldiers, causing heavy casualties across the front.”

A few of the generals grumbled, Euphemia looked highly concerned, and Frahm sighed.

“The slavs used everything ranging from chlorine gas to sarin on our troops; luckily the Imperial army issues every one of its soldiers a proper gas mask, so casualties were much lower than they otherwise would have been. Of course, the natural response to this would be to retaliate in an equal manner… but the Russians are subhuman filth, and frankly we will not bother fighting on equal terms with them,” Schneller scoffed.

“Does anyone have a list of Russian population centers and transportation hubs?” Schneller asked those present in the room. Frahm’s expression darkened slightly, while even innocent Euphemia knew what this meant.

“Using a combination of both old knowledge, our own transportation routes, and satellite imagery collected over the last three days… trust me, we spent A LOT of time pouring through pictures of Russia, I’ve come up with a short list of six cities I believe we need to strike within the following week or two at most. Petersburg and Moscow must be neutralized for both the propaganda value and in the case of Moscow second, transportation value. The same logic applies to the cities of Saratov and Volgograd, both of which are likely major railway junctions and provide the Russian Army with much of its logistics support. Voronezh and Rostov-on-Don must also be neutralized, if only because they were likely used as staging grounds for the Russian Army. In total: 6 cities and give or take maybe 5-10 million inhabitants.”

“And how do you suppose we’ll go through with this?” Frahm asked, slightly concerned about the implications.

“That is where we factor into this equation!” A relatively young lady with short black hair and dressed in a typical lab coat walked on over. “Josephine Mengele at your service, Imperial Biological and Chemical Warfare Corp.”

“Oh Christ what sort of insanity have you cooked up this time?” Frahm facepalmed.

“The best sort of insanity!” Josephine announced. “Around ten years ago, researchers involved in what you might know as Project RED HARVEST finalized their findings and created themselves a weapon of choice. Thanks to extensive testing on tens of thousands of labor units from Africa, we managed to perfect said weapon and optimize it for the one thing we do best here in the corp: exterminating people!” The woman went on with her explanation, a bit too cheerfully if you asked Frahm. Euphemia was terrified by the strange woman in front of her, and decided to hide behind Frahm.

“It’s called RHV-106, but I prefer its full name: Multiple-Resistant Haemolytic Neurogenital Anthrax! It’s basically a specially modified strain of Anthrax with the additional symptoms of syphilis, with the added bonuses of being highly drug resistant and very effective at breaking down a victim’s blood cells. Given its one month average incubation time, it’ll be awhile till anyone notices something is seriously wrong… but it’ll be too late by then. Within 48 hours of the first symptoms showing… they’ll be dead as a rock. Our records indicate over 90% of people die without treatment, and even with advanced Imperial medical care, upwards of 50% end up perishing. While it’s not the easiest to transmit to others, anthrax spores can be carried by the wind.. so yeah!”

“That sounds… absolutely terrifying and beyond awful,” Frahm cringed. “As if we needed some sort of horrible biological weapon capable of rendering entire regions uninhabitable for decades on end.”

“It’s a highly effective area denial weapon,” Josephine said without much a second thought of the implications. “One I’m sure could be of use in this war.”

“On the other hand, we do happen to have a very large stockpile of other chemical weapons… though our VX and N-Stoff warheads could be most useful at this moment,” Hess stated. “I suggest the immediate deployment of VX and N-Stoff laden bombs, canisters, shells, and whatever else we have in our arsenal across the frontline on the advancing Russians. CIF should burn through their gas masks and hazard suits just fine, while VX’s killing efficiency and area denial will give us time to regroup. Likewise, I recommend using our stealth bombers and navy to deploy both chemical weapons on Moscow, Voronezh and Petersburg. It’ll help soften up resistance and probably clear out a good deal of undesirables.”

“Use the FLEIJAs,” Goering interrupted, finally speaking up after he’d been quiet for a good duration of the meeting. “Rostov-on-Don is a useless city, might as well erase it. As for Volgograd? The food there sucks and over 300,000 Imperials died there during the last war. Erase it as well. The luftwaffe and missile force can see to that quite quickly. And don’t forget to drop some of that RHV-106 on Saratov,” he abruptly finished before going back to eating some more hamburgers.

“I’ll order the eastern cities to put their defense grids on high alert in case the Russians try anything,” Hess said in order to assuage the prime minister (who was clearly quite worried). “Any objections to my proposed plan of retaliation?”

Euphemia slowly raised her hand.

“Yes, princess?”

“This all seems… rather over the top and inhumane. I see why we’d strike their military with such weapons… but civilians?” Euphemia seemed unsure of herself. She was clearly heavily conflicted about Hess’s plan.

“It shouldn’t be anything for you to worry about,” Hess shrugged. “They’re uncivilized slavs, not human beings. Anyways, other objections?”

“Yes, I object,” someone else snarled. “We should be launching a mass strategic strike on all of their population centers! Take them out now and we solve a lot of future problems! I say we kill’em all!” He finished. More than a few others seemed to agree with this.

“I say we go with Hess’s plan,” Frahm said quite forcefully. “It’s heavy handed, yes, but appropriate for what we’re dealing with here.” The room quieted down after that.

“It’ll take a few days for us to get our bio and chemical weapons units in position, though the FLEIJAs can be fired immediately,” Hess quickly drafted up a plan on some paper he had at hand. “In five days time, we will begin our retaliation. That will be all.”

...

[Dansha]

South African Administration Region, Jan 1st, Year 0
SAAR-CAAR Border, Former Namibia, Sector 16

“I hate heat. I really, really hate heat.” Corporal Finlay MacGuinness, an immigrant from Arcadia who came to Southern Africa prior to the loss of contact with the rest of the Orion Arm. complains as he and his partner, Corporal Nkululeko Zosongo, drive along the border between the two administration regions in the former Namibian Caprivi Strip. “Why did it have to be so damn hot?”

“You’re the one who chose to move here, McGuinness.” Zosongo replies from the passenger seat. “And if you really did hate it, you’d have moved by now.”

“Ah, shut it.” MacGuinness replies as he drives, before looking up at the sky, which starts to change colour after flashing a bright purple. “Well, that’s not normal.”

Looking back down, MacGuinness slams on the brakes to avoid hitting a large metal object lying on the side of the road, blocking part of the narrow route. Getting out of the car, the pair take hold of their rifles and slowly approach it.

“Looks like some sort of humanoid machine.” Zosongo says, looking behind it. “Looks like it’s been abandoned for a while.”

“Looks nothing like what we’ve built.” MacGuinness replies, taking a closer look at the machine’s torso. “There’s a faded insignia on the side of the torso as well as what looks like German. Don’t know what it says though.”

“I’ll radio this in so HQ can have it recovered.” Zosongo says, before bringing the mic of his helmet’s radio to his mouth. “HQ, this is Patrol 4-4 Alpha. Requesting recovery vehicles to our current position. We’ve found an abandoned machine of some kind lying on the side of the road. It has German on it.”

After several seconds, he nods. “Understood. We’ll hold position.”

“HQ sending someone to recover this thing?” MacGuinness asks as he gives the machine a slight kick. “Whatever this thing is.”

“Yeah, they’ve told us to hold position until they get here.” Zosongo says. “There’s another thing they told me you need to know.”

“What’s that?” MacGuinness says. “Did something happen?”

“We’ve lost all contact with everyone outside the SAAR. Aside from satellites and Cape Town Station, all orbital assets have been lost as well.” Zosongo says. “They didn’t say much else.”

“Well, damn.” McGuinness replies as the pair take a seat in the car.

An hour later, the Regional Administration Council declares a state of national emergency and announces the beginning of rationing.

[The Canadian North-West]

Indian Forward Operating Base, Indo-Pakistani Border. January 1st, E1, 6:53am.
The time had finally come. Years of buildup between Pakistan and India had finally come to a head after a Pakistani air strike in the Kashmir region. While it had caused very limited casualties, the gall of the Pakistani military in the attack had been enough to push the Revolutionary Guard to develop the plans for a full-on invasion. For the past months, Indian armoured units had been running regular drills in the South, while in the North Indian infantry had been training with friendly Gurkhas in an attempt to better prepare them for the terrible mountain fighting that would surely come with the storming of the Janmu-Kashmir border. All leading up to this day. The first fighter sortie of the day was about to start, primarily a reconnaissance mission, to ensure that Indian intelligence was up-to-date and any last-minute changes in Pakistani defenses were properly recorded. General of the Revolution Manas Prash personally oversaw the taking-off of those MiG 25s, so graciously provided by the Soviet Union, which would oversee this vital mission…

Somewhere over Sindh, Indo-Pakistani Border. 7:32am.
Flight Lt. Gazdar knew that there was something… wrong. He just knew it. However, it wasn’t until the sun finally came up over the desolate wasteland did he really realize the extent of it. He heard some kind of chatter from the other flight of his Squadron, and realized that they were saying the same things; there was no life… basically anywhere. Overnight, it had seemed like the entirety of the province had turned into a toxic, uninhabitable ghost town. Nothing was where it was supposed to be, and it seemed like what little dwellings there were were totally abandoned. Gazdar had flown this particular reconnaissance flight dozens of times, being a near weekly occurrence for a year now, but… something was clearly off this time, not something that could be explained by a sudden upgrading of Pakistani defenses. Not to mention, absolutely no anti-air fire, or missiles, or enemy sorties… anything. He radio’d his findings back to base, before turning around with the rest of his flight, making one final pass over the wasteland…

Punjab. 8:20 am.
The initial reports were completely discarded by Revolutionary Command, but as more and more reconnaissance flights returned with the same findings, the Command began to take the reports more seriously. In addition to deeper reconnaissance flights of MiG-25s, a number of MiG-27s and MiG-23s were dispatched to begin working over what defenses were in place, to ensure that they were unable to retaliate when the Indian state finished its replanning and launched a full-out assault. The majority of this reconstituted air effort was concentrated in the wider Punjabi region, where it was expected that the heaviest fighting would occur, and where the Indian army expected the heaviest Pakistani resistance would be encountered. Oddly, the Soviet air wings they had expected to be arriving from Afghanistan were not present, and Revolutionary Command had thus far been completely unable to get into contact with their Soviet counterparts. Regardless, the Ground Attack squadrons began their work, targeting and bombing numerous outposts, anything they spotted that seemed to have some kind of defensive weaponry attached or nearby. These sorties were quickly halted, however, as all air wings were frantically called back to base due to an unsettling discovery… rather, a series of discoveries made all across the border…

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Reichshauptstadt Berlin
Reichschancellory
The Führer

To say that he was furious would have been an understatement. A fury that the Survivor Brigade member, that he had just killed, had greatly increased by calling him führerious...

With an inhuman scream of rage, hatred and dark magic, the Führer vented his frustrations into the nightly air before turning away from the bloody mess on the floor to address the others in the room. He walked swiftly over towards a floating skeleton, clad in the black uniform of the Reichsführer SS...the skeleton, surrounded by a hue of dark magic, seemed to visibly quiver and shrink, touching down on the ground with its feet trying to make itself as small as possible as the Führer built himself up before it.

"What do you mean the grave is gone?

What. Do. You. Mean."

His voice seemed to quite literally vibrate with malicious intent and dark power, being overlayed multiple times as though there were several of him speaking. The skeleton shrunk a bit further, replying in a deep, rumbling and equally unreal voice:

"I am sorry, my Führer but it is the truth. When I and my troops arrived at the place...everything beyond the castle was gone! The entire excavation site seemingly vanished and was replaced with flatland, filled with trees upon trees my Führer. I swear, by the devil, it is the truth!"

The Führer's hand clenched and unclenched as he ground his rotting teeth against one another. This just couldn't be. It had to be incomptence. Or some allied trick. The Impaler had to be somewhere and Heinrich should have found him and shouldn't have returned without the body. With an angry roar, the Führer raised his hands, occult power crackling from his fingertips.

At that point the other two people in the room threw a glance at each other. One was a women clad in black SS fatigues. Her cold, pale face could possibly be called beautiful, were it not for the rotten holes in her cheeks, allowing one to look right at the rows of sharpened teeth within her mouth. It was the Führer's wife and first lady, Eva Braun, who had perished alongside her husband when the Führerbunker was overrun. The other, the lean little man in brown, was the former Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. After Plan Z had been executed, Goebbels had been instrumental in strengthening the will of the nation to fight and restore some semblance of trust in the Führer's vision, a task that had been difficult, especcially as they came under constant attack by the undead...untill the undead withdrew and the Minister of Propaganda came face to face once more with the man he idolized above all. From that point onward he had become the head of those who still held on to the Führer with an almost religious fervor. They were people who couldn't be reasoned with, who wouldn't be reasoned with, stuck within their fanatical devotion to their undead Führer.

The High Priest of the Führerkult didn't need to say anything with his words, the First Lady clearly seeing that he may have information at hand from his eyes. And she went into action immediately, trying to save the occult officer from her husband's fury, rushing to his side and putting her arms around him, snuggling up to him and saying with more sexual undertones than a dead thing should be able to:

"Now honey, why don't we all calm down? I am sure that Heinrich did everything within his power and probably went above and beyond what had to be done in order to be truly sure of the results. Perhaps Joseph has picked up something instead? If the allied dogs undertook an operation there to foil our plans, surely there must have been a lot of radio traffic?"

It seemed to work, the crackling energy around the Führer's fingers vanishing and the skeleton, which had raised its hands to its defense, slowly lowered them, somehow managing to even look somewhat relieved while still looking frightened in some way. The Führer, despite not having to, breathed heavily, trying to cope with his rage before he pulled his wife closer into an embrace, pulling at her long hair to pull her closer and planting his rotten lips on hers, the two of them smooching lovingly for a moment before the Führer broke lip contact. Blood and pus was smeared over his wife's mouth but she didn't seem to mind, smiling at him with her sharp teeth before wiping it away, giggling.

"Oh my, looks like you certainly haven't forgotten how to kiss. I'll have to carry more make-up on me if we decide to do this more often."

She let go off the Führer, stepping back and pulling various make-up applying utensils out of her pockets, starting to clean up her face again and restore some of its unique beauty again. Meanwhile the Führer turned to Goebbels, who shivered in delight at being the object of his idolized Führer's attention.

"So, is my wife right? Do you have any news Joseph? Did your men hear anything?"

The High Priest of the Führerkult didn't even seem to notice the Führer's still lingering rage, instead proudly smiling as he held up two vinyl records and exclaimed:

"Within the last days the Reichssender Berlin-Tegel has picked up several transmissions which I deemed of high importance. Especcially these two. They are from our enemies, the United States of Amerika and the United Nations it seems."

The Führer raised an eyebrow. So far so underwhelming. They caught enough transmissions from them as they were constantly staying in contact with the Survivor Brigade holdouts, trying to supply them by air and occasionally bombing targets designated by them. The contents of these transmissions had to be extraordinary.

"The US transmission is quite interesting. Not only does it mention nations which, by our knowledge and all rights, should not exist such as the Reavers of Iowa and Missouri, the Free Merchants Republic of Kansas and the High Church of Texas, no, it also mentions historical events we have no knowledge of. I crossreferenced with several books in american history and did not find any mention of he Great War of 2077, the Civil War of 2245 and the invasion of the Zombies in 2247 to 2248. Both the dates as well as the last event seem fishy. I am not sure how far you have advanced so far but I do believe we have not yet made any forays into the new world, yes?"

The Führer nodded, wrinkles appearing on his forehead as he contemplated what Goebbels had told him. This was odd indeed. Had they perhaps travelled in time into the future? A future in which he had already attacked across the Atlantic with his legions?

"Then there is this transmission from the United Nations. They explicitly mention that they appear to have been transported through space and time as well as a return to their original dimension. I believe they may actually be quite right with this, which would explain why Heinrich could not find the Impaler. We simply aren't where we used to be anymore. It is the only plausible explanation."

The Führer seemed lost in thought but it was the skeleton, now floating once more, that spoke. It seemed that Heinrich had regained his courage:

"Dimensions? Space and time? Are you sure Joseph? This sounds awfully outlandish?"

Goebbels simply rolled his eyes before stating matter of factly:

"A few weeks ago a glowing skeleton floating before me and talking to me would've seemed quite outlandish to me as well."

That shut Heinrich up quickly and finally seemed to convince the Führer as well, who stopped rubbing his chin and decided on a course of action, turning to Heinrich first:

"Heinrich, spread the word that I want multiple legions to advance northeast, east and southeast. we need to get a better grasp of the lay of the land there and hopefully find some locals to garner information from about where we've landed. I can already see that Joseph is right, we have indeed been moved in space at the very least and if these transmissions are real and no elaborate hoax, also in time."

He then turned to Goebbels, thanking him:

"Thank you for your tireless work Joseph. This is why I keep you alive. Do continue with it and inform me immediately if you learn anything new."

Both Joseph and Heinrich raised their right arms and shouted:

"Jawohl my Führer!"

, before leaving again, having orders to execute.

[Empire of Techkotal]

At the Iron tower seconds after a small troop of Solar Empire rifle GRUNTs had activated the staff of Qa-len on top of the tower.

The bright glow in the sky intesified. The Solar Empires weapon fired a beam on the position of the Iron tower. Lord Ferrok looked up into the sky seeing the beam and shouting: "No! World domination was at hand. Legion save me."A bright light appeared and afterwards the sky turned blue. The beam had dissappeared. The glow in the sky had vanished with out a trace of the Solar Empires superweapon.

Lord Ferrok shielded his eyes from the bright light of the sun and looked at the blue sky. There was nothing left in the sky, but why. He was certain that he should had died. Nothing happened.
His eyes starred at the bright blue sky and looked for any trace of enemy aircraft, but there was nothing there. What happened? Did he win? The shouts of the Legion tore him out of his thoughts. The unharmed Legion stood in front of him. Many looked confused around themselves. Others shouted Lord Ferroks name and others seemed to have panicked. Many eyes turned to him looking for his leadership. His time had come to speak:
"Legion on this glorious day we won. The Solar Empire has lost, Empress Qa-len has failed and her troops shall be slaughtered." He made a small pause and took a breath: "Total conquest is at hand. Legion destroy the resistance, hunt them down and kill every last of them. Our landing forces in the Solar Empire shall finish them off." The troops in front of him cheered.
Lord Ferrok turned away and went back to the Iron tower. A group of Legion Veterans waited for him with miniguns in their hands. One of them stepped forward and asked for new orders.
"Go to the top of the, kill the intruders and capture their weapon" said Lord Ferrok.


At the Iron tower

Rows of heavy tanks were driving out of the capital city into the wasteland. Hundreds of gunships followed them. Thousand of Iron Legion troops followed them.
They were slowly advancing towards the last pockets of resistance. The Solar Empires last troops had barricaded themselves in a valley. Their tanks were charging their batterys at huge solar panels, while the Solar Empires troops tried to push the Legion back.
Commander Golb looked at his map of the area. The valley made it impossibel for the enemy to launch a succesfull attack, but their fierce resistance cost him many troops. His artillery pounded the valley and yet the front didnt break. Lord Ferrok had ordered him to finish the enemy intrudes in this area and he promised not to disappoint him. His last pushs were all halted.
In face of such fierce resistance commander Golb had ordered a bombing run of 200 of the Legions bombers. That was ten minutes ago, but no aircraft had arrived yet. Maybe there were some delays or the air base was damaged.

Grump and his companions formed the crew of one heavy tank. They had recently left the capital and stocked up their Nerocite at a nearby Nerocite silo. The tank rattled and, while he was driving over the street.
This small force consisted out of 50 heavy tanks and were ordered to assist commander Golb. Grump opened the hatch of the tank and looked out. The sky was still blue and the sun painfully pierced through the clouds.
He had only once in the Anglo isles seen such a blue sky. Did something change? Lord Ferrok hadnt given them any information about this drastic change in the environment. The only normal thing was the land of Xylvania itself. It was still the same toxic shithole.
After a couple of hours doing nothing else then making jokes the tank came to a halt. Grump looked up and asked the driver what happended. The driver told him that they had arrived at the valley.
Grump hadnt payed a lot of attention to the noises outside, but he could hear now the typical sound of plasma canons. There was no Xylvanian that didnt knew that sound. In the backround some artillery guns fired and the sound of assault rifles firing reached his ear. Did they really arrive in time? It seemed so. The radio cracked and a voice ordered them to a new position. Slowly but surely the heavy tank drove towards the valley.
The infantry of the Legion gathered in groups around the heavy tanks and prepared themselves to attack again. The choppa sound of the gunships came from behind and the gunships which had followed them attacked.
A short artillery barrage started and then the radio cracked again. Lord Golb ordered them to advance.

After giving the order Golb saw a officer running towards him. "Commander the bombers will be here soon. Lord Ferrok orders you to stand down and attack after the bombing" said the officer.

Golb starred at the officer. He had just given the order. He couldnt call them back without looking like a coward. He streched his back and spoke "If you say so it might be like that. Bring me the radio. I'm a generous men today and I give you the chance to proof yourself worthy. Call the attack back officier." It might not look like it, but things like this generally tend to happen from time to time. Some idiots just take to long and bring the hole plan in danger. Stupid incompetent bastards thought Golb. If something like this happened in the war it could lead to a defeat. He swore to himself that he would get that incompetent fucker demoted after this incident.


At the Iron tower


"What do you mean we lost all contact with our forces in the Solar Empire? What we have no contact with all our military forces outside of Xylvania! Our radios are the best in the world, because I personaly designed them and they never fail" shouted Lord Ferrok.
After a brief moment of silence one of his commanders in norhtern Xylvania spoke "My Lord I lost contact with many of my forces and some fortresses and citys dont respond. A troop of scout gathered some information in the area and came back with some shocking news. The wasteland in the north is gone and all streets, citys and fortresses seem to be gone too. It seems like a bad joke, but maybe the superweapon of the Solar Empire did work." Lord Ferrok shouted at that radio: "The northern half of our Xylvania disappeared without a trace of what happened you say? Something like this is impossible."
Silence.
After a brief pause a radio to Ferroks left cracked and a the voice of the airforce commander spoke "My Lord something weird indeed happened. Our fighers confirmed that the superweapon of the Solar Empire difinetly worked. Our territory in the west has been lost and the lands were look like nothing I have ever seen. Some of our pilots have reported that the same seems to have happened in the east and the navy already told us that our hole coastline seems to have changed."

Lord Ferrok was speechless. Did his commanders go mad or did something really happen? It seemed odd then the enemys superweapon fired a beam and nothing happened.
"Lets say I belief this what would that mean for us" asked Ferrok. If something like this had happened the Legion would have been nearly destroyed. All there progress would be undone and Xylvania doomed not to achieve world domination.

"There are several options: either they destroyed our lands and most of our forces, they might have blurred our vision and we all are dreaming or we got teleported with the core lands of Xylvania. While the last theory seems rubbish, something must have definitly happened. The lands of the north, south, west and east disappeared and seem to have been replaced with unknown lands. There are structures in the west which we have never seen before. The north has become a clean desert and the souther lands seem to have sunken below the Ocean. Our troops on the frontlines dont respond and the enemy nations seem to have disappered" said one of the commanders.

"This seems highly unlikely. Transporting huge lands is impossible. But is it really true that our enemy nations dont seem to exist" asked Lord Ferrok.

The commander of the eastern provinces spoke "My Lord the eastern lands have been lost. We got confirmation from our fighters that the Western Frontier doesnt exist anymore. There navy and air presence is gone and the Ocean is also gone. There once the Ocean was there is now land. But this is not even the worst news. A new foe seems to have appeared in the east. They definetly didnt exist in our world and there is no nation with those kinds of units. We dont seem to be anymore on our world. This is just to weird."

Lord Ferrok looked at a map and made a new prototype map with a pen based on the informations of his commanders. "It seems like we lost most pf our forces and huge amounts of territorys if that is true. Empress Qa-len seems to have gotten her victory. But what do you mean with a new enemy appeared commander" he said.

The radio cracked again and the eastern commander answered "My Lord we are under attack from unknown forces. Many of our defences have been destroyed. I need reinforcements."

Once again it was silent. Then Lord Ferrok answered "Send a quarter of our forces to the west and let them stand still. I want a few tanks and fighters to patrol our northern border. About you commander, commander Golb shall reinforce you. I will send another 4000 tanks to reinforce you. Now scout the area with a couple of hundreds of our fighters. As soon as you know the enemy positions give me there positions. I will the send the majority of our airforce to bomb the enemy into submission. The Legion shall be victorious!"
All the radios cracked and the commanders shouted "The Legion shall be victorious!"

[Sentinalyia]

Vaju Hegu, Capital Province Nafijaane Gafuvu, Queendom of Sentinalia

It was, to most, a normal morning in Vaju Hegu. Cars, imported and native models alike, sped along on the roads. The flags of the historic districts waved with the wind, warning pedestrians of potential danger. Workers on their way to their jobs stopped at street carts to grab their breakfasts of street -fried pastries, or sat in coffeehouses awaiting the day. Students in traditional uniforms ran along on the way to their schools, a tide of long flapping skirts and coats. Above, a few isles drifted, with tenders hovering nearby to watch their paths. Cloudships of all sorts drifted above the city, pushed along by their propellers and the winds. The great skyscrapers of downtown, their Neo-Sakar architecture shining with glass and metal arches, stood as monuments to the nation's push into the modern day. The strange fusion of old and new that was modern Sentinalia. As it would always be.

"Rule eternal." He mused as he stood gazing out of his window, cup of coffee clutched in his hand. Alechys Melyaat, Prime Minister and Ichen bu Veiociela, looked away from the panorama of his office window and back to his desk, with its eternal coating of paperwork and office supplies. He surpressed a soft sigh. Though he loved his country, it faced so many problems that its civilians knew nothing of. Without the support of its modern allies... It would likely have never reached the heights it had. Not that many of the men who shared the Veiociela with him would agree. The nationalists were complaining about external connections again, and the Modernist party that had supported him into office would have to do all it could to keep Sentinalia's alliances from being strained by the echoes of the past.

As, perhaps, it would always be.

Looking away, he missed the way the sky shimmered.

--

The streets of the city were now little more than organized chaos. People lined the windows, hoping to catch another glimpse of the lights in the sky. Several cloudships had their routes cancelled, and were now silently floating above the city. For a moment, even the ever-present winds fell silent. Sentinal news began their long stream of reports, watched anxiously by the businessmen in the coffeehouses, and those who remained home. Contact lost with all other known nations. The Border Defence Force reports the Suoki border and all land beyond the Nunvon replaced with unspoiled permafrost. Compasses all across the country have reversed. The temperature has plunged rapidly, to winter levels. The Bureau of Natural Dangers requests that all civilians switch to winter clothing. Satellite connections all across the country are failing.

The list slowly grew, and grew. Nationalist and Ultranationalist groups called out victory cries around the nation- finally, the chosen people would be free of those who might threaten their charge. This was a jubilation that would be short-lived, with the first reports of unknown contacts spotted. The new world they had found themselves in was not uninhabited. The Armed Forces were given new orders to redeploy, though in the chaos those would take some time to finalize yet. Several detachments of Aeronaval and Border Defense cloudcraft began to range outward, scrambled into the air as fast as could be managed.

--

Royal Chambers, Vaju Hegu, Queendom of Sentinalia

It was supposed to be a normal first day. That's what she thought to herself, silently cursing every god she could name.

She'd been floored when she got the offer from the Royal Guard, and even if her position was not nearly so prestigious as being an actual Guardsman, well. Being a Royal Servant these days has quite a few perks, so she'd been happy to accept. It wasn't until right now that she'd really considered what being a Royal Servant meant.

Jaanat fidgeted nervously at the entrance to the room, clutching her silvered tray with white-knuckled fingers. Across, lounging silently on a chair that had probably cost more than her entire house, was a figure that many in Sentinalia saw more as a myth than a person. The Queen herself gazed silently out of the palace window, before languidly turning and fixing her gaze on the new visitor. Jaanat steeled herself, glancing away from the piercing gaze of the woman's blood-red eyes. "Your... meal, Konygen." She said with as little nervousness in her voice as she could. She felt more than saw the way the Queen's gaze softened.

"This is your first day, is it not?" The Queen's voice was soft, musical. It was hard to believe that it was a voice that belonged to somebody so old. "I do not believe we have yet met, though the other Servants have spoken of you."

She ducked her head. "Yes, Konygen."

"How unfortunate, for it to be today. Come, sit with me." The Queen gestured to a chair across from her at the small window table. Jaanat was pretty sure her heart was going to leap its way out of her chest.

Jaanat shuffled her way across the room, settling the tray down at the table before settling herself in the chair rigidly. The Queen stifled a soft chuckle. Jaanat shrunk a bit. "I... am sorry, Konygen. With everything that happened-"

"You have no need to apologize. It does amuse me, the way many new Servants are so worried to offend me. You are quite alright." The Queen smiled ever so slightly, and Jaanat for the first time saw the way it did not quite reach her eyes. "Now, tell me. How do you feel about all that has happened?"

Jaanat looked at her in confusion. "Ah... it's all somewhat frightening, isn't it? It was just a normal morning, but now everything's gone insane."

The Queen nodded. "Yes, I suppose it would be. It's somewhat surprising, even to me. I've never seen anything quite like it."

"If... I may, why do you ask?" Jaanat risked to ask. If her first day was already gone to dragonshit, then...

The Queen lifted a cup full of traditional Baaryafyl from her tray, taking a short sip from it. "Well, I like to see things from the perspective of my subjects. Even if I don't have as much say anymore, I do not want to lose touch."

"I see. Thank you, Konygen."

"It is quite alright. Now, would you mind staying with me until my meeting with dearest Alechys? I do think the man is about to have a heart attack with all the messages he has been sending my office..."

[Europa Undivided]

The Chinese Commonwealth

"The United... what?"

"I am positive, Mr. President.", the Secretary of Defense stated as he played the transmission that the entity that introduced itself as the United Nations in the Parliament Chamber. There was no mistaking it: the person that was speaking in the other side was not dummy, or fake, or make pretend transmission. It was real; every cyberwarfare expert and information technology expert in the government's ranks all agreed that the world wide message that was allegedly sent out by the United Nations was one that brimmed with legitimacy in terms of not being some trick. It was tracked back to Australia, where the space stations and orbital satellites confirmed to be a place that was filled with civilization, as well as having ten times more population than it should have; there were no less 400 million people living in there, judging from the amount of heat signatures and the size of the cities present. This only added to the confusion that the Commonwealth was already experiencing, but the message of the United Nations left the Commonwealth with another option: diplomacy. From what they could tell, the UN and the Commonwealth had similar ideals, and perhaps they could work together in trying to figure out the madness that was the new world that they had been thrown into.

Transmission to the United Nations

Greetings. We are the Chinese Commonwealth, and we speak to you in peace. We are assuming that you have been experiencing the same confusion that we have been experiencing in the last few hours. We have sent scouts all over the periphery of our nation, and nothing seemed to be right. Therefore, now that we find another entity that entails at least some semblance of familiarity, the Commonwealth will send a diplomatic envoy to you. We pray that we find common ground.

In addition to the message to the United Nations, the Commonwealth sent out another message, though this time it was being sent in all known frequencies in all known human languages. The Commonwealth made it clear that while it speaks in peace, it is ready to unleash its forces against anyone that seeks to harm its citizens. However, there was also one thing: the Commonwealth invites those who can come to come to Gongzhou and speak freely. Perhaps they can all work out a solution and relations...

[The Alpenbund]

Finsteraar, somewhere beneath the Finsteraarhorn. Governmental district, Federal Council complex.

"So what you're saying is, the Combine is not here anymore?", Federal Council member Jeanette Niemann asked, somewhat incredulously, the Brigadier holding the presentation. "That's what we currently know, yes. It's been replaced in the North by something called... the 'Empire of Europa', apparently. Reports from the south are still coming in. As for this Europa, reports have been mixed. They're not behaving aggressively... but soldiers are reporting concerning sights from the border." A picture of Imperial soldiers saluting an officer was displayed. The council members collectively scratched their heads.

"Do we know what exactly happened?", council president Giovanni Berlusca asked. The officer shifted uncomfortably. "We have no idea. Speculations range from another Black Mesa scale event to divine intervention." There was a short silence as the council members ran the possibilites through their heads. Another council member broke it again. "Whatever it was, I think we can all agree that the situation calls for drastic measures. A General must be elected by the federal assembly as soon as possible." Everyone nodded collectively. "The assembly is already being called together for an emergency meeting, starting in about half an hour. We shall propose it then."

"If I'm being honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it was some kind of divine thing.", the council vice-president, Markus Teller, remarked. "I mean, the air is suddenly as clean as before the war, the rivers and lakes are devoid of any debris and the water is not toxic anymore? But the landscape is still as hellish as it has ever been. That sounds pretty damn arbitrary to me."

"Well, whatever it was, 'divine' doesn't cut it.", someone said as the door opened and several men in blue suits entered. "Ah, Director F.", Berlusca greeted the man. "I assume SAÜK has made some sort of discovery as to what happened?" The director of the SAÜK found an empty seat. "I've sent a small preliminary report already. You should find it in your inboxes. But, to make a long story short, we've managed to narrow it down into a few options.

"What matters right now, though, is what we've been detecting so far. The sensors that didn't get fried during the transition have been redlining ever since." He put up a graphic on the large screen hanging from the ceiling. "We have an approximate location on three problem areas. One, Britain. The entire isles are giving off completely unnatural Hume readings. Two, somewhere in North America. We can't get proper scans currently, but something is going on over there as well. And thirdly, this."

The screen zoomed in on a small point in the east, colored in the most bright red of all. "Something unnormal is extremely concentrated in this area. We're talking in a radius of a few dozen kilometers. The Hume readings, even from so far away, are absolutely ridiculous." The Brigadier looked at him. "And you're saying what exactly?" "That SAÜK needs to investigate. We need boots on the ground."

Berlusca shook his head. "Hold your horses, F. Until we've figured out what the hell this 'Empire' is, you're not going to just fly through their airspace to investigate an anomaly in their territory. SAÜK will have to wait a few days. Plus, according to signal traffic, there's a war going on over there-" "Then we will send agents under the guise of foreign observers.", F. interrupted the council president.

There was a silence again for a moment. "...if the Empire tolerates foreign observers, then maybe.", Berlusca finally replied. "But until we've gotten into diplomatic contact with them, you will have to put that mission on ice. Speaking of, how are we looking on that front?" "They are proposing a data exchange. Headquarters is currently preparing a packet, and pending your review, we should be ready by the evening."

Berlusca nodded. "Good. I'm looking forward to seeing who those guys are."

[Fenvaria Republic]

Fort Otto
Beta Providence
ISOT event, Year 0
19th Airborne Fusilier Regiment

Fort Otto stands as one of the most remote settlements in the colony, while still away from the border of the colony it was still quite away from the main settlement. The major industry of the fort was mining, as it sat adjacent to a vein of fenvarium, a vital fuel source that is used by the Republic to power their vehicles. This black substance, however, was quite lethal to those who mined it and didn't have the proper safety equipment causing a victim’s lungs to undergo extreme agony as the fumes slowly ate away at their lungs. Eventually, the lungs would collapse and explode, causing the victim to drown in their own blood. But, on the rare occasion the victim would get lung cancer or survive being exposed to the fumes.

So, why is this fuel important? Well it is the single most powerful fuel source that the Fenvarians have found that was in abundance, not to mention easy to tap into. It is so powerful that the Fenvarians ditched their old fusion power plants over 200 years; but most settlements and cities still use fusion power so they don't interfere with the city’s fenvarium reserves.

As for the fort itself, it was a pretty standard settlement consisting of largely small condos with a few bars, clubs, refinery, factory and some other industrial jobs. While at the center stood a small grouping of military buildings, with a concrete wall and other defenses. Around it all stood a rather thick concrete wall with low turrets housing anti-aircraft guns, along the wall there were other wall mounted defenses. Outside, the fort had a small patchwork of defenses mostly consisting of trenches, barbed wire, mines and other nasty surprises for any attacker.

From the east gate, a small grouping of light recon vehicles left the fortified settlement on a typical patrol. The massive metallic door slowly creaked open, shaking the snow and ice off of the doors. The ice would clatter to the ground, shattering into pieces and the snow would softly fall to the ground in little piles, but the door would brush them off to the side. As the door opened, the bright lights of the light recon vehicles showed into the morning hours illuminating a snowy asphalt road. Once the gates had fully opened the two vehicles rolled off with a crunch as they drove through the snow, heading down the road and off onto their patrol.

It wasnt long until the two vehicles drove off the asphalt roads and hit the rough dirt roads that connected each of the settlements together. The driver of the lead vehicle let out a line of curses as the right tire hit a pothole that had been covered by the snow. The car jostled a bit as the back right tire also hit the pothole, shaking the other three soldiers who also let out a slew of curses. One of the soldiers, a human-fenvarian hybrid female, smiled as she looked at the driver. “Damn, you wanna shake this tincan anymore?” The driver, who was a fenvarian female, looked back and smiled

“You wanna drive this tin can? Cause I can pull on over and you can drive it.” she shot back still smiling before then looking back at the road.

“Nah, I am good.” replied the soldier from earlier, sitting back in her chair and looked around the rather confined cabin of the light recon vehicle. The driver rolled her eyes upon hearing his reply, it seemed typical that she would mess with her, the two always seemed to be messing with each other at the oddest of times. Just then she heard the gunner call out to her, telling her to stop the vehicle with her adrenaline pumping she stopped the vehicle and looked out the tiny window of the vehicle as she reached for her pistol. What she saw was like nothing she had ever seen, in front of them stood this huge beast with alters and copious amounts of fur. It stood taller then any of them and it seemed like it could just throw them if it wanted.

“What the hell,” muttered the driver as she looked at the beast, unsure how to go about this. “What am I looking at?”

“I don’t know!” yelled back the gunner as they looked down from the turret. “It must be some sort of local animal that we have never seen or encountered before!”

Sighing she was about to radio the other vehicle when she heard the side door open and then close, just then she saw the passenger trooper walk towards the animal with rifle in hand. The animal just looked at the fusilier before slowly walking towards the other side of the road. The fusilier watched the beast as it walked off, minding its own business and eventually to go eat some vegination on the side of the road.

Just then a voice cut through the silence of the cabin. “Lead! What the hell is going on?”

Shocked by the voice, the driver of the lead LRV fumbled for a few moments as she snapped out of the blank stare. “Sir, uh, we found something we have never seen before.”

“Oh yea? Where is this newly discovered thing?”

“Uh, it seems to be a local animal?” replied the driver as she looked out the slot to make sure that the animal was still around, “Check the field on our left hand side, I think you should be able to see it.” She then stepped out of the vehicle and looked over into the left hand field, still watching the beast as it ate away at the vegetation. On the other side of the radio there as a gruff sigh and then a door creaking open, the silence. When the driver of the lead vehicle looked behind her, she saw the pack leader stunned as he too saw the animal, he seemed to be taken back by its odd shape and stature. After a few moments of watching it, the pack leader looked over to one of the riflemen and ordered him to shoot it, so that they could take it back to the fort. The rifleman nodded and pulled out his rifle, slapping the bolt handle down with a loud snap. The moose then raised its head and looked at the trooper who was now shouldering their rifle, before then going back and eating.

After a few seconds there was a loud crack followed by a whizz of a bullet tearing through the calm winter air. Then there was a thud of a body hitting the now red snow, the fusilier lowered his rifle and then walked over to the body of the moose. Which had a gaping hole in its side near the front legs, its heart appeared to be missing as well as a large section of flesh. The fusilier would see the exit wound and it was massive, with a nod he turned to pack leader and nodded. With a scoff the pack leader nodded and looked to the other soldiers, then walked over to the dead animal.

“We are going to take this...... thing,” he said, gesturing to the animal “back to Fort Otto and tell them something is up, we have never seen an animal like this before.”

“Copy” replied the rest of the fusiliers who went to work to pick up the beast and strap it to the hull of their IFV, things could not get any weirder, could they?


Fort New Tirpitz
New Tirpitz Providence
ISOT event, Year 0

Well, it appears that yes, things could have gotten worse then what the folks over at Fort Otto found. Lord Major Alpo Kaila von Gneisenau’s fingers were drumming on the solid oak desk as he looked over the data file, he seemed to be contemplating something as he read the report. Their communications with the wider Republic had been cut off, the only thing that remained was the colony and the few satellites that were in orbit. Luckily, the harvest had been bountiful this year and all of the food storehouses had been filled. Not to mention in a stroke of luck someone put in a larger shipment of military goods, while normally he would have to find out and punish this person he was thanking them.....for now. But, they still lacked the personnel to fully protect the colony if they were to be invaded on all fronts......that is if anyone else was here.

He was fully aware of the situation and how fucked they were, it appeared in some godforsaken miracle well more like a curse, the entire colony had been teleported out of their realm and thrown here. After fact checking with his subordinates and other fauna experts, as well as some humans in the colony it appeared that the animal that Ft. Otto recovered was a moose, common to a planet called Earth. Which meant that the colony had been transported to the homeworld of humanity, but according to the Fenvarian database, Earth was heavily populated. How could they be here and not receive contact from any human nations or have come across any human military formations?

It annoyed him greatly and he sighed, putting down the data tablet and placed his muzzle between his hands. Then dragged them through his hair and sighed once more. “Alright, so, we might be on a planet called Earth. How haven't we met any human nations or forces?”

“It could be a sort of timeline that we appeared in that has no humans, if you will, a blank earth.” started one of the advisors, head of the research division here in the colony. “So, we could have been teleported here and left to fend for ourselves.”

“You really think that we are the only ones here?”

“Possibly, however, without further data, I have no idea. It is not like the answer is going to come barging through the do-” started the science advisor, however then an aide burst through the doors and it seemed like he was shocked and highly concerned. His army uniform was shuffled and there was some sweat dripping from his nose.

“High Major! You need to hear this.” replied the aide, standing straight up and pressing out the wrinkles in his uniform. In his hand there was another data tablet, he quickly walked past all of the other advisors and handed the data tablet to the High Major. Alpo took the tablet with a raised eyebrow and then began to read it. What he read was something that she never would have expected. It appeared to be a statement made by an entity called the United Nations and it talked about some of the things they had been going through as well as a message to the Republic.

“Now, we have observed that there are other entities other than our own present in the world. This is addressed to them; We do not know who or what you are but this address is broadcasted on all known frequencies. But remember this: Earth is under the jurisdiction of the United Nations. All resolutions established and passed by the UN General Assembly and Security Councils will be in effect. The Court of Justice will prosecute any crimes against humanities should it be the case. Nevertheless, the United Nations will provide humanitarian aid through the UN Humanitarian Agency should it be requested. We hope that this anomaly is only temporary and we will be returned to our original dimension. Should anyone threaten the freedom and independence of the United Nations, it will be met with force.”

The High Major raised an eyebrow at the statement towards them, it seemed like a clear indication that this was a threat to behave or suffer the consequences. But, instead of being worried he simply frowned and sighed, placing the data tablet down onto the desk in front of him. So it seemed that they were on Earth after all, the cradle of humanity, which remains a contesting point between the human factions from their dimension.

Several of his advisors looked at him with concerned faces, wondering if something went wrong since the face of the High Major was quite stoic. Just as one of the advisors was about to speak, the High Major cleared his throat and leaned forward, staring at the advisors. He then handed the data tablet to one of the nearest advisors who looked it over, then passed it on.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are indeed on the planet known as Earth, but we are not alone. We have received a communication from them stating that they are the superficial government of Earth and promptly warned us that any threats to the UN would result in force. Also that any sort of war crimes would be handled by their courts and any crimes against humanity.” he then leaned back a bit and pulled a cigar out of the right hand drawer, cutting off a tip and placing it in his mouth. Then grabbed a lighter, flicked it on and lit the cigar, before then flicking off the lighter. “So, we are in an interesting position since we aren't human.......thus parts of their message could possibly not apply to us. However, we should not waste this opportunity to.....introduce ourselves.”

One of the ministers, head of Colonial Diplomatic Affairs tilted her head and looked at the High Major. “What do you mean, High Major? As in engage in diplomacy?”

“To a fair degree, we need to establish communications with this UN and see if we can help each other with any sort of problems. Normally, we wouldn’t engage in this sort of diplomacy since the galaxy is a harsh place with little friends. But, since they are the superficial government of Earth, having that kind of......power might be beneficial to us. If we help them, they might be able to help us.” replied the High Major taking the cigar out of his mouth and blowing a small smoke ring into the air before then smiling.

“Yes, however, I suggest that we take this slow.” replied the diplomatic advisor as she placed down the tablet. “We have no idea what this UN is capable of, not to mention the only notes we have of the UN is from our own dimension where many of the human diplomats from the United Provinces of Sol called it a ‘waste of time. So, I suggest extreme caution.”

“Noted” replied Lord Major Alpo as he looked at everyone else, before then going onto other manners. It would be several hours of debate and talking about how to go about this rather precarious situation. They discussed several things, one of which was the future of resources here. It was decided that farms would have to expand and everyone would have to be pulling extra shifts on farming, mining, and construction duties. There was also the issue of further expansion of the industrial base of the colony. While there was industry here it was very limited and only produced small batches of replacement parts, for the most part any sort of large scale part orders would have to be imported. However, with their current situation, importing parts would be impossible. So, everyone was going to have to pull extra shifts and duties, including parts of the lower government.

Once that was all discussed, a message was sent out to the UN;

Greetings United Nations, this is Lord Major Alpo Kaila von Gneisenau of the New Tirpitz colony of the Fenvaria Republic. We come in peace and are in the same position as you, confused and cut off from the other nations of our respective dimensions. However, if you wish we would like to engage in diplomatic ties with one another, our location has been attached in this message. I would suggest bringing something heavy to wear.

-Sincerely,
Lord Major Alpo Kaila von Gneisenau, military governor of New Tirpitz Colony, and Commander of the 290th Corps of the Fenvaria Republic Army.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Québec
Lac Manicouagan
The Reich is on the march

The woods around the lake were dark during the night. They would have been almost pitch black if it wasn't for the shambling monstrosities walking around below their branches, their eyes glowing a bright orange, marking the strange unlife that animated their bodies. They brought light into the darkness and civilization into the wilderness...

Or atleast what their cruel masters considered civilization. The terrific cries of large animals as they were slaughtered whenever they didn't run from the undead sounded through the forests of Québec. Fires burned, blood watered the roots of the trees and organs and heads were being nailed against trees as the undead horde began to "decorate" the woods as they saw fit.

Yet their activities were not solely contained to mere decoration, no the dark will that directed these creatures had bigger, more strategic things in mind. Zombies mindlessly dug through the soil with their hands, unearthing deep roots while others put ropes and cables around trees, dozens of zombies pulling at the trees in attempts to uproot them and get them out of the way. They were felling trees, clearing paths through the untamed canadian forests. Paths upon which the Führer could move heavy loads and the troops of the Führerkult could use with their vehicles.

There was a lot of forest to work through and a lot of work to be done for the slow creatures...but they were tireless in their efforts and so these paths through the wild grew slowly but steadily, making their way through Québec like snakes through grass. All of them headed east, wether with a slight sway towards the north or the south was irrelevant for it was still all eastwards.

Reichshauptstadt Berlin
Waffenfabrik Spandau
Hilda Kreisler

The former arms factory in Spandau had changed a lot since the days of the Empire. Both rough and beautiful brick structure had long been reinforced with concrete and the rotting corpses of those who dared to oppose the new order. Swastika flags still hung drearily from the balconies and walls. Pitch black smoke billowed out of the towering chimneys and the sounds of heavy machinery, the guttural cries of the dead and...gunfire dominated this part of the ruined city?

It was gunfire indeed for the factory had come under assault by a squad of Survivor Brigade members, determined to breach the walls of this unholy factory and blow it sky high.

Atleast that had been the plan, thought Hilda Kreisler, quickly ducking back into cover in the doorway she stood in, bullets whizzing by as soon as her head was gone and slamming into the wall and doorframe, splintering pieces of concrete away, some of it getting into her eye, leading to her cussing and trying to rub what got into her eye out of it while the remainder of her squad continued firing back at their enemies.

She threw a glance down at the factory floor, through the gridfloor that made up the walkway they were on. The floor was crawling with zombies shouting their guttural intent to kill up at them, the machines they had previously been attending completely forgotten. Atleast they were somewhat safe up here. Though it would only be a matter of time untill the undead would have found a way up here and would swarm them and then it would be the end.

Which meant that they absolutely had to take out that squad of fanatics pinning them from the other end of the walkway. Rubbing her eyes one last time, cursing, the german woman peeked around the corner again and fired wildly down the walkway with her MP-40, not caring about the ammo she expended, emptying the entire magazine and prompting the enemy to stop firing and duck for atleast a moment.

But they were back up just as soon as she was finished. She lingered for just a moment, looking over to them and seeing them in their field grey or camouflaged garbs, men and women both young and old, hatred blazing in their eyes as they lined up their weapons to return fire again. Fuck, they would never get past those guys.

As if to confirm that and to show her just how badly god had abandoned her and her team, she suddenly heard a loud roar coming from down the walkway. And then the walkway started to shake...

Her comrades screamed in terror, one of them trying to get up and run but a salvo of bullets caught him in the back, ripping his torso apart. Hilda was quick to pull out her TT-33 and immediately put two bullets into his head to try and ensure that he would stay down. The rest of her squad had meanwhile cowered itself even further into cover as occasional salvos of machinegun fire flew over their heads or impacted their cover. Hilda dared to look around the corner again to try and see what it was that was coming and apparently spelling their doom, freezing in shock when she saw it.

It was a hulking brute of a man, over two meters tall and with burning red eyes. His thick black overcoat and black helmet as well as relatively orderly appearance made him stand out among the other zombies. Apart from the immense size of that undead, what was truly scary was the machinegun he held in his arms, firing occasional salvos from his hip in their general direction, the sound of the gun being as though someone was ripping cloth apart.

She almost lingered too long, the Elite's attention already turning to her when he saw that she was out of cover. A hail of bullets was sent her way but she managed to evade just in time to avoid getting turned into swiss cheese. That was it then, wasn't it? All she had left to do was wait and pray for her soul to make it into the afterlife...

...

What the hell was she seeing right there?

Hilda rubbed her eyes and looked again but no, it seemed like what she was seeing was actually the truth. She saw man in a dirtied, bloodied white undershirt and a red bandana as well as formerly probably field grey, now more like field brown, trousers and combat boots swinging through the factory hall with some steel cable, holding the cable with one hand and an MG-34 with the other, firing as he was swinging through the hall.

The Führerkult was outflanked and caught completely by surprise, the MG just ripping through them . The Elite, which had still been pinning the Survivor Brigade team was slower to react, turning around just in time for the mysterious newcomers swing to plant his boots straight in the Elite's face with immense force. Hilda could hear the cracking of bone even from where she was at and watched spellbound as the Elite stumbled backwards, broke through the safety railing, flailed with his arms to try and keep his balance and then just fell backwards and down onto the factory floor. She could hear him hit the ground with a satisfying THUMP and watched as the conveyor belt the beast had landed on brought it under some hydraulic press which immediately went ahead and turned quite a bit of its body into paste. Well, that thing certainly wouldn't be bothering them anymore.

Meanwhile their mysterious saviour approached the survivors of her team, all of whom were now getting out of cover and staring at the newcomer in silent wonder. She too lef the doorway in which she was standing, though more because she could hear guttural moans on the other side and didn't think it to be a safe position for much longer. Seeing as none of her team seemed to have the guts to do it, she approached the stranger, taking note of how ripped he was before levelling her gun at him and asking:

"Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing here?"

The handsome man smiled at her raised MP-40 before putting his finger onto it and pointing it in a different direction, saying:

"Well, that's not how you greet your saviour."

Hilda blushed almost immediately. God damn it, if this guy was some Führerkult spy then he sure didn't seem to fucking care too much about swaying their opinion of him...though it was exactly that which badly sabotaged her negative opinion of him and made her sincerely hope he wasn't part of the Führerkult. It would've been a shame for such a grandiose specimen of a man to loyal to the rotting corpse that was responsible for all of this.

Before she could respond, heavy banging against the door in which's frame she had been seeking cover before drew all of their attention, including the man's. He stared for but a split second before making a decision, saying quickly:

"Looks like introductions will have to wait. Come with me ladies if you want to live."

He stretched out his hand invitingly and for some reason Hilda, albeit tentatively, took it. He immediately tightened his grip though not so much to cause her pain or major discomfort, quickly pulling her after him as he led them down the walkway and towards what was hopefully an exit.

Hilda had to admit, she was smitten with him.