Aurora 4x
Fiction => Elouda's Fiction => Aurora => Fiction Archive => Topic started by: Elouda on December 13, 2010, 12:15:53 PM
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Some history for the campaign and the main powers, and a list of 'house rules' used during the campaign.
Part 1 - Flashpoint
The second Korean War in 2019 was the beginning of what is now called the Third World War, although experts would say that the resulting war did not really compare in scale to the previous two, despite numerous predictions to the contrary. Indeed, it is more likely that the name stuck because the war, in addition to being significantly larger than anything since the Second World War, was fought mainly across the impoverished countries of Africa.
A series of events during the past year had heightened tensions and led both South Korea and her allies to increase their military readiness, and despite protests from the Chinese, the United States had almost half of its carrier fleet in the Pacific during this time. The discovery and sinking of a pair of North Korean submarines south of Seoul in South Koreans waters led to a violent reaction; including an unsuccessful missile strike on Seoul which many suspect was nuclear in nature. With their gamble a failure, and Allied troops pouring into DMZ, the North Koreans were faced with backing down and trying diplomacy, or fighting a conventional war. The confidence expressed by North Korea’s military leadership that they would be victorious, and would be able to deal with any US ‘interference’ convinced the North Korean Supreme Leader to continue the war. The quality of equipment fielded by the North Korean army caught the allied forces by surprise; leading many to speculate that the Chinese had sold large quantities of modern weapons to them. This suspicion would become fact in the weeks to come.
As the initial attack by the allied forces stalled some 40km north of the old DMZ, an allied amphibious force was assembled to secure a landing further north on the western coast to threaten the capital and force the North Korean army to divide its attention between the fronts. This task force included 4 of the US supercarriers to provide air support and air cover from what remained of the North Korean airforce. On July 23rd, in the middle of the Yellow Sea, some 400km off the North Korean coast, the task force was attacked by advanced North Korean cruise missiles resulting in its almost complete destruction, including the loss of 3 supercarries. Later analysis revealed that the missiles employed had also been Chinese in origin; indeed, the Chinese military had greatly boasted about the supposed effectiveness of its anti-carrier missiles, which had made the nations own plans for carriers obsolete. These claims were generally dismissed by the US Navy and other military experts in the world as nothing more than propaganda, and the cancellation of the carrier program was seen as nothing more than an inability by the Chinese to develop the necessary technology. What was more concerning was that to execute such an attack the North Koreans would have required access to high precision satellite imagery of quality only possessed by the US, the EU, or China.
When confronted with evidence pointing to the use of their missiles and targeting data by the North Koreans, the Chinese denied having sold anything more advanced than small arms and small numbers of combat vehicles to the Koreans. When pressed to make records of these sales transparent to US authorities, Chinese diplomats refused, commenting that perhaps the US had ‘got what it deserved’ for meddling in affairs in Chinas sphere of influence. The United States severed diplomatic connections with China at the beginning of August, and US intelligence services were directed to find the truth about the attacks.
Meanwhile, as the war in Korea slowed down as both sides regrouped, the EU, which had grown to include a limited form of unified military, debated on whether to provide support to the US and her allies in Korea. With some countries still hurting economically from the effects of the 2007 recession, increasing oil prices, and the costs of supporting the newer member states, the EU was in a difficult position; the UK spoke strongly for supporting the efforts, despite having suffered greatly from changes in political leadership over the past years, along with a decline in the financial sector, while Germany and France, their economies finally stable, vehemently disagreed about wasting money and men on a war on the other side of the world. Japan, whose involvement in the Korean war had so far been limited to support through her airforce and navy, passed a law altering Article 9 of their constitution in such as way as to allow the country to use force in defence of both itself and its allies. With the situation in Korea what it was, the change passed almost uncontested and with the support of the US.
A month later, as the allied forces in Korea began to make progress once more after being reinforced by Japanese, Australian and more US troops, the US got the intelligence coup it was after, as a group of operatives infiltrated a Chinese state mainframe and through it most of the Chinese internal network, and collected copious amounts of information. This breakthrough was facilitated by the help of an anonymous third party, who provided detailed information on Chinese network infrastructure to the US; in hindsight, many speculate that as the only other powers with the ability to do something like this were the EU or Russia, and as Russia had more to gain from what followed, they are generally recorded as being the most likely source.
The information extracted included exactly what the US was looking for, and feared to find; clear evidence of not only weapons sales including the missiles used in the attacks, but also of other joint projects to help develop North Koreas military and intelligence services. Amongst these was access to the Chinese GPS equivalent and access to their imaging satellites for use over Korea and the surrounding region, including Japan. 24 hours later there was not a single Chinese satellite left in orbit, commercial or military.
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Part 2 - World at War
The Chinese were caught unprepared for the sudden and well coordinated strikes on their orbital infrastructure, and by the time they were in a position to react, it was too late to salvage the situation. Infuriated, the Chinese demanded an explanation and reparations from the US. The US refused, and claimed it had clear evidence of China’s direct involvement in the attacks that killed several thousands of allied sailors. China dismissed the evidence as fabrications, and once again issued its demands, along with threats to take actions if they were not met. The US refused to comment, and instead moved to mobilise its military in the event of attacks by the Chinese.
Instead, the Chinese ceased exports of raw materials and goods worldwide, essentially bringing the global economy to a halt in less than a month. As the US and other nations cast about for alternative sources for resources, they were surprised by the extent to which the mineral wealth of both South America and Africa was under Chinese control, though companies that the Chinese state had direct or indirect stakes in. During this time further analysis of data gathered from the Chinese revealed that this was another facet of Chinese strategy, designed to provide them with a way to undermine the more powerful and high tech US and other western economies. With the US faced with the choice of accepting the ‘embargo’ and facing civil unrest and massive economic collapse, or going to war for the resources it needed, there was only one option. Perhaps luckily for mankind, the US was aware that much of China mineral wealth was from South America and Africa, and thus elected to strike at these locations first, foregoing a strike on the Chinese mainland. In part this was due to a wariness of the now proven Chinese missiles, and in part it was knowledge of the fact that such an attack would inevitably ensure the war going nuclear; not something the US was prepared to accept with its allies in the area; and numerous US troops in the theatre.
On the 11th of October the United States declared war on China along with several African countries under Chinese control, and began deploying troops to the continent. The Chinese had expected this, and had spent the last month quietly deploying military forces to the continent aboard the same cargo ships that brought material to China. In addition, the Chinese leadership managed to negotiate right of passage through India for its supply lines and limited numbers of reinforcements, in return for a non-aggression pact between the countries and granting India access to those resources withheld from the rest of the world. The US had also considered using force against some countries in South America, but eventually diplomacy prevailed and most countries agreed to seize Chinese possessions in a bid to increase their own strength. Those countries that did not quickly found themselves facing their neighbours with potential US support.
Things escalated further as a week later Iran and several other Middle Eastern countries took the opportunity of the rapidly decreasing US presence in the region to declare war on the US and Israel; quickly overrunning the former US supported states of Iraq and Afghanistan. With their assets tied up in Africa, the US turned to the EU for help. While the EU had been hit by the embargo, they had managed to remedy the situation somewhat by striking up a series of trade agreements with Russia in return for technological and industrial assistance. Thus, when the US asked for assistance in the Middle East and North Africa in return for a share of the resources acquired from Chinese control, the EU already concerned about the effects of war in the Middle East, acted swiftly. As the Middle Eastern forces completed their conquest of Iraq and turned their attention to Israel, the EU began attacks south from Turkey and across the Mediterranean to relieve their allies.
In the Pacific, the declaration of war against the Chinese by the US had turned the Yellow Sea into a no-man’s zone, and brought the advance in North Korea to a halt once again as their forces were reinforced by Chinese forces from the mainland. The US had provided the intelligence on Chinese involvement in the attacks to their allies in the region, including Japan, as the government interpreted the Chinese involvement in the attacks against targets which included JMSDF ships as a declaration of war. A swift invasion of Taiwan following the US declaration caught many of the powers in the region by surprise, and fuelled the decision by the remaining countries of ASEAN to join the war alongside the US. With an abundance of airbases in the region, the allies were able to strangle China’s maritime trade, forcing them to rely on the trade routes through India and the Middle Eastern nations, whom, though not openly allied with the Chinese, nevertheless cooperated due to similar goals.
Before the war Africa was the second most populated continent with close to 1.2 billion people. Two years later, the number would be under a quarter of this, as the two superpowers fought with little regard for collateral damage and ever increasing pressure to bring the war to a swift end and acquire the resources they needed. By June 2020, the EU had seized most of the Middle East, closing the Chinese supply lines through the region, but was unable to divert more forces to Africa due to the constant attacks by local guerrilla forces and the threat of an invasion of Afghanistan and Pakistan by the Chinese. The war in the Pacific had remained a stalemate, with the Chinese unable to project their power beyond their own coast due to allied airpower, and the allies unwilling to risk an attack on the mainland. The war in Korea slowly swung in China’s favour, with allied forces driven further back as time passed. By August, it was clear that it was only a matter of time before the Chinese overran the peninsula, and a joint effort by the countries of what was now being called the East Asian Alliance to evacuate Seoul and other major population centre began.
As the war raged on, in November a joint geological expedition from India and Kazakhstan led by Dr Mehadi Holkar was analysing meteorite remnants from a recently discovered impact site on the Russia-Kazakhstan border when they made a discovery that would lead to the greatest revolution since the steam engine.
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Part 3 - New World Order
The data collected by the team was made publicly available, and analysed by both Indian and Russian research institutions; the neither made little of it until a scientist working at the University of Delhi pointed out how certain anomalies in the material composition matched predictions made in a paper published a few years earlier Dr Chandi Gondkar about exotic materials. It took only days for both countries leadership to be made aware of the implications of the discovery, and neither hesitated in diverting significant research efforts towards investing the new materials, dubbed ‘Trans-Newtonian Elements’ due to their unusual behaviour. Realising that while they had a head start, as the information that lead to the discovery public, the two countries chose to collaborate on the development of new technology. This was relatively unsurprising, as the Indian and Russian military had developed several successful joint projects over the last decade.
When a panel of scientists from Harvard made the same connection 6 months later and presented their findings to the president, along with suspicions that one or both of the countries that published the information had no doubt come to the same conclusions, the US was left in a tough position. The war in Africa had been going in their favour over the last 3 months, and the US and allies controlled roughly half of the African continent. The raw material shortage was mostly overcome, as South America had fought a series of wars to settle the score between the US and Chinese backed countries, with the former winning as the Chinese were able to offer no assistance to their ‘allies’. With the discovery the US was eager to divert its resources at developing the new possibilities of the technology and not throwing them away on a war the purpose of which might become obsolete in the next few years.
When US diplomats contacted the Chinese to negotiate a ceasefire, the Chinese were surprised; the war had been steadily turning against them ever since the Middle East had been occupied by the EU, and the Chinese government were convinced that the US would stop at nothing short of their destruction. Nuclear options were considered and discarded; it was unlikely the Chinese would be able to attack the US without retaliation in kind, and it was no secret that the US had the more capable nuclear arsenal, not to mention anti-ballistic missile defences. Attacking Japan, while satisfying, would result in the same, and Chairman Zeng Qiong was thus willing to reopen diplomatic channels with the US despite the protests of other party members. The initial terms demanded by the US were harsh, including return of both Taiwan and the whole of Korea to their rightful owners, along with a full withdrawal from Africa. Several weeks of negotiations later, while both sides armed forces waited on edge, a peace agreement was signed in Seoul between the two sides. The Chinese would relinquish control over the Korean peninsula, but would retain control of Taiwan in a manner similar to Hong Kong. In addition, they would agree to demilitarise most of their African forces in return for a similar reduction by the allies. One year and 11 months after it began, the Third World War was over for most of the world.
The EU was caught equally flatfooted by the peace treaty, though they had little objection once it became clear that it would mean the end of the war. Unfortunately, the EU had vast forces tied up in the Middle East, and the US was reluctant to get involved in the region again after their long involvement at the beginning of the century. In a bid to provide incentive to their allies, the EU informed the US about the new discovery of TN Elements by a scientist at Edinburgh University, only to be told that the US had made the same discovery a month earlier. Frustrated and unwilling to tie itself to the Middle East with new horizons awaiting, the EU withdrew from everywhere except Israel over the next year, leaving the Middle East in complete chaos.
Realising that it was only a matter of time before the Chinese learned of TN elements themselves, the US provided their research data to the Japanese, and through them the rest of the East Asian Alliance, in a bid to help their allies and promote cooperation. Chinese discovery of TN elements came a few months later as a Chinese intelligence cell still operating in the US obtained enough information to point Chinese scientists in the right direction.
The next 6 years saw the consolidation of various power-blocs, beginning with a loose Indo-Russian Consortium to further enhance cooperation in developing TN technology. This was partly in response to the EU’s clear advances in the area, which seemed likely to overtake their individual advances. The East Asian Alliance had remained in existence since the end of the war, and gradually saw reform into the East Asian Federation as it grew to include trade and research agreements between its members. The US, Canada and Mexico were the last to unify into what became the North American Union.
With new technology putting the entire solar system within reach, the major powers wasted no time ascending to the stars to compete over new territory and new possibilities there. Left on Earth were the shattered remains of Africa, a Middle East ruled by one warlord after another, and a fragmented South America. While countries in these regions developed TN technology, their lack of unity prevented them from doing much beyond using it on Earth, most often as weapons.
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Timeline
07/2019
-North and South Korea go to war
-North Korea sinks US Carrier group using Chinese technology
08/2019
-China denies involvement in attacks, US-China diplomatic ties severed
-EU debates entry into the war, decides to remain neutral
-Japan and Australia reinforce allied forces in Korea
09/2019
-US agents obtain intelligence confirming China’s involvement
-US shoots down all Chinese satellites
-US confronts China with evidence, China refuses reparations, threatens action, US does not back down
-Chinese begin worldwide embargo on various raw materials and goods
-US begins preparations for war
-China begins sending forces to important countries in Africa through India, whom they secure a transit agreement with in exchange for raw materials
10/2019
-US declares war on China and Chinese controlled Africa
-US pressures South America to take control of Chinese companies, most countries act
-US withdrawal from Middle East leaves region unstable, alliance led by Iran seizes control of Iraq and Afghanistan
-US requests EU help to deal with Middle East in return for raw materials
-EU forces support Israeli forces against the Middle Eastern Alliance
-US allies in Pacific declare war on China, China invades Taiwan, ASEAN members join US alliance
06/2020
-EU complete occupation of Middle East
08/2020
-Chinese advances in Korea for the newly formed East Asian Alliance to evacuate large South Korean cities
11/2020
-Team led by Dr Mehadi Holkar finds first traces of TN Elements
-India and Russia begin developing TN technology
02/2021
-US begins to win the war in Africa, war in the Pacific still a stalemate
05/2021
-Panel of US scientists discovers TN Elements
-US diplomats offer the Chinese peace terms, initial offer rejected, negotiations ensue
06/2021
-Peace Treaty signed in Seoul, China gives up Korea, keeps Taiwan, and both sides demilitarize Africa
-EU asks for US assistances in the Middle East, offers TN Element knowledge to help relations, US refuses
-US provides TN Element knowledge to East Asian Alliance
07/2021
-EU begins withdrawal from the Middle East
08/2021
-Chinese obtain enough information to develop TN technology
2022
-EU completes withdrawal from Middle East, entire region left in disarray
2024
-Indo-Russian Consortium formed
2026
-East Asian Federation established
2027
-North American Union formed
2032
-Game Begins
The game is run with a series of restrictions to make things more interesting;
-Only Marine, Engineer and Garrison forces on planets with colony cost greater than 4.
-No PDC only Components (ie PDC Missile Launchers & PDC Firecontrols)
-Infrastructure cannot be removed once emplaced
-Maximum number of Planetary Sensors limited to 10
-No Meson Cannon until salvaged
-No research of Jump Drive Tech until certain events
-Human race modified for Gravity of 0.15-1.75.
-Database modified as follows;
Reduced cost of Financial Centers (to 90)
Increased cost of Automated Mines (to 480)
Increased cost of Deep Space Tracking Station (to 600)
Increased cost of Terraforming Facility (to 1200)
Reduced all facility cargo sizes (by 2.5x; 25k -> 10k)
Reduced cargo hold capacity and size (by 2.5x)
Added reduced scale Orbital Habitat Modules (10x less cost, capacity, size and HTK)
Reduced Low Tech ground units to Battalion size (Size reduced to 50%)
Increased reload time for missile launchers (2x)
Increased strength of standard shields (2x)
Increased Gauss Rate of Fire (1->2; 2->3; etc)
Reduced Asteroid Mining and Sorium Harvester Size (x1/4) and Cost (x1/2)
This is all for this topic, so feel free to comment here too.