Author Topic: Nemesis Campaign Part 1: Background  (Read 2535 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Nemesis Campaign Part 1: Background
« on: September 15, 2006, 12:56:55 PM »
History of the Commonwealth of Free States

Background to the campaign
There are eight starting nations in the campaign, all of which are based on Earth. The campaign starts in 2040
 
1) Commonwealth of Free States (usually referred to simply as the Commonwealth). This is a US-dominated power bloc including all the English speaking nations of the world. Its members include: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel. It was formed during the China Wars to counter rapid Chinese expansion when almost all European nations refused to intervene. Israel joined later when the Commonwealth intervened to assist Israel against an all-out assault by the Islamic Alliance. Considered to be the most powerful of the three superpowers but by an uncomfortably small margin. Its technological edge finally halted Chinese expansion but at the price of allowing China to retain its existing conquests.
 
Official Language: English
Population: 400m
Industry: 8x Shipyard, 16x Research Lab, 320x Construction Factory, 160x Supply Factory, 320x Mine, 80x Ordnance Factory, 40x Fighter Factory
Planet-based Defences: 26x Missile Silo, 1x Fighter Base, Level 3 Tracking Station
Research Points: 200,000
 
2) Chinese Empire. This comprises modern-day China plus a significant number of surrounding countries conquered during the China Wars. These include South Korea, Indonesia,  The Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia and Burma. During the China Wars, the Chinese conquered all of the neighbours to the south and south-east. Their expansion was finally halted by a combination of the Commonwealth, Japan and India using superior technology to overcome Chinese numbers. The Chinese were not military defeated but realised further attempts expansion might result in the loss of all that had been gained. They are currently trying to redress the technological balance.
 
Official Language: Chinese
Population: 1700m
Industry: 7x Shipyard, 7x Research Lab, 420x Construction Factory, 140x Supply Factory, 280x Mine, 70x Ordnance Factory, 70x Fighter Factory
Planet-based Defences: 35x Missile Silo, 1x Fighter Base, Level 4 Tracking Station
Research Points: 100,000
 
3) European Union (often referred to as the Union). This is a French-dominated power bloc comprising most of the European landmass plus Scandinavia and Turkey. The Union has remained neutral in the global conflicts of the past twenty years and has concentrated on unifying its political structure and building up its economy and technology. It is unarguably one of the world's three superpowers.
 
Official Language: French
Population: 400m
Industry: 6x Shipyard, 12x Research Lab, 240x Construction Factory, 120x Supply Factory, 240x Mine, 60x Ordnance Factory, 60x Fighter Factory
Planet-based Defences: 20x Missile Silo, 1x Fighter Base, Level 3 Tracking Station
Research Points: 150,000
 
4) Japan. A single state that allied with the Commonwealth in the China Wars but remained independent. Japan's place in the world has changed over the last thirty years due to the growth of the Chinese Empire and the emergence of the European Union as a unified state. However, the Japanese remain a proud nation and are a match for any of the non-superpowers.
 
Official Language: Japanese
Population: 150m
Industry: 2x Shipyard, 8x Research Lab, 100x Construction Factory, 50x Supply Factory, 120x Mine, 25x Ordnance Factory, 25x Fighter Factory
Planet-based Defences: 8x Missile Silo, 1x Fighter Base, Level 3 Tracking Station
Research Points: 150,000
 
5) Russian Federation. Comprises most of the states which formed the Soviet Union. The Russians took advantage of the chaos of the China Wars to retake almost all the territory lost to them during the breakup of the old Soviet Union. The Baltic States remained within the European Union. As with the Chinese expansion, the European Union refused to intervene and concentrated on securing its own borders. The Russian Federation is still fairly weak in economic terms compared to its neighbours, the European Union and the Chinese Empire and is falling behind in technological terms while its tries to revive its economy.  
 
Official Language: Russian
Population: 200m
Industry: 2x Shipyard, 4x Research Lab, 80x Construction Factory, 40x Supply Factory, 150x Mine, 20x Ordnance Factory, 20x Fighter Factory
Planet-based Defences: 8x Missile Silo, 1x Fighter Base, Level 3 Tracking Station
Research Points: 75,000
 
6) Republic of India. Comprises modern day India plus Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, all of which were conquered during the China Wars to prevent a Chinese takeover. India has yet to emulate the Chinese Empire in utilizing its huge population to create an economic and military powerhouse but it is a strong regional power with great potential.
 
Official Language: Hindi
Population: 1100m
Industry: 2x Shipyard, 4x Research Lab, 80x Construction Factory, 40x Supply Factory, 80x Mine, 20x Ordnance Factory, 20x Fighter Factory
Planet-based Defences: 6x Missile Silo, 1x Fighter Base, Level 3 Tracking Station
Research Points: 50,000
 
7) American Confederation. Comprises all of the America landmass with the exception of the United States and Canada. As new superpowers formed in Europe and China and the USA's friendly relations with the English speaking world turned into a strong political and military alliance, the countries of South and Central America found themselves on the sidelines of world affairs. Brazil and Argentina put aside their traditional rivalries and used their regional military and economic muscle to organize the rest of South America into a political confederation. Mexico began a similar process in Central America and in 2034 the two American confederations became one. While not yet as unified as the European Union, the American Confederation is a regional power approaching the strength of Russia or India.
 
Official Languages: Spanish and Portuguese
Population: 400m
Industry: 1x Shipyard, 3x Research Lab, 70x Construction Factory, 30x Supply Factory, 100x Mine, 20x Ordnance Factory, 20x Fighter Factory
Planet-based Defences: 6x Missile Silo, 1x Fighter Base, Level 2 Tracking Station
Research Points: 25,000
 
8) Islamic Alliance. Development of alternative fuel sources such as hydrogen in the early 2010s significantly reduced the world's reliance on oil, which had a severe impact on many Middle Eastern economies. In addition, with oil no longer a factor in strategic decision-making, western governments responded to Islamic terrorist attacks with massive retaliation against any country even suspected of supporting terrorists. Many Islamic countries saw the West as aggressively seeking to destroy their religion and began to form political and military alliances against the threat. Over the course of two decades, a loose association stretching from the Atlantic to the Himalayas coalesced into a strong alliance of Islamic nations intent on the spread of Islam, by force if necessary. Sunni and Shia agreed to temporarily abandon their ancient disagreements in the face of a greater external enemy. Despite its fervour and high population, the badly managed economy of the Islamic Alliance could not support its military ambitions. A war against Russia in Central Asia ended in defeat and the conquest of several small African nations came at a high price. By the late 2030s, the Islamic Alliance had become a military theocracy with religious and military training the centre of its citizen's lives. Unfortunately for the Alliance, science comes a poor second to correct religious doctrine and its lags behind the other powers of the world technologically as well as economically.
 
Official Languages: Arabic and Farsi
Population: 1000m
Industry: 1x Shipyard, 1x Research Lab, 30x Construction Factory, 30x Supply Factory, 60x Mine, 10x Ordnance Factory, 10x Fighter Factory
Planet-based Defences: 6x Missile Silo, 1x Fighter Base, Level 2 Tracking Station
Research Points: 25,000
 
Situation in 2040
Up until 2020, space exploration consisted of unmanned probes with little financial support for manned missions. China sent a manned mission to the moon in 2018 but abandoned further missions to concentrate on earthly expansion. After the carnage of the China Wars, the three superpowers turned to space to try to gain an edge over each other in future conflicts. The smaller powers followed suit, determined not to be left behind. In 2036, a commonwealth science team examining the possibilities of several outlandish propulsion systems made a startling discovery; the existence of another dimension, close to our own, but with radically different physical laws, the most significant difference being that space-time in the other dimension had the properties of a fluid rather than a vacuum
 
Although they could not find a way to move from our own reality into the nearby universe, the theoretical work of the scientists resulted in the discovered of previously unknown elements with strange compositions that seemed to be affected by the presence of this universe. Unfortunately, almost all of the elements were only found within the molten core of the planet and would require significant effort to access. Given the significance of the discovery, sufficient funds were quickly made available and core mining techniques developed. Once in the possession of sufficient quantities of the minerals, the scientists discovered the minerals somehow intruded into the space-time of the alternate dimension and that spacecraft built from these elements would be affected by some of the physical laws of that universe. They theorized that this would allow spacecraft to turn in space like ships in water but it would also quickly slow them to a stop if their engines ceased operating. A secondary effect was that the mass of such a ship would be dramatically reduced allowing much higher speeds from conventional power systems. Finally, it was discovered that sensors and communication systems constructed from some of the new elements could send energy signals through the other dimension at a speed much greater than light. Within a solar system, communication and sensors would effectively be real time.
 
This breakthrough meant that long range system exploration was finally a reality and the Commonwealth began diverting more and more funds to building a space-based capability. Such a discovery could not remain secret for long through and within a year, the other nations of the world learnt of the newly discovered dimension and the existence of the minerals, now known as Trans-Newtonian Elements, and began building their own shipyards and factories to support the exploration and exploitation of nearby space.
 
Two years later, the same team made two new discoveries, the first amazing and the second apocalyptic. Using new gravitational sensors developed from Trans-Newtonian Elements, the team discovered a number of gravitational fluctuations throughout our own space-time with no obvious cause. They theorized that these fluctuations might be caused by the existence of invisible wormholes forming between the gravitational wells of stars and that study of the gravitational fluctuations in a star system would provide the locations of these wormholes. Experimentation with the creation of tiny wormholes provided exactly the readings expected and the scientists informed the Commonwealth government that travel between star systems might be possible if the wormholes could be located and a way found to open them. Work began immediately on ship-based sensors to detect the wormholes and an engine capable of opening a wormhole and taking a ship through it.
 
The second discovery came from new deep space sensors, revealing far more of the heavens than was previously thought possible. A wandering dark star, hitherto undetected by any conventional telescope, was on a collision course with the solar system and would arrive within fifty years. The effect of its arrival would be cataclysmic, with planets scattered like so many balls on a pool table, if they weren't destroyed outright. The blunt summary placed in front of the Commonwealth's political leadership was simple. There was no way to stop the star, now universally called Nemesis, and when it arrived it would destroy all life in the solar system. The only chance for the human race was to be somewhere else when it arrived. Despite the objections from some of his military, the President of the Commonwealth informed all other world leaders of the situation and made available the scientific data on the theoretical existence of wormholes and the proposed  'Jump Drive' that would allow a ship to transit the wormhole into another star system. He strongly advised them all to dedicate their economies to finding a way to leave the solar system and take their people with them.
 
If the President had hoped for a unified response from the human race, he was disappointed. Reactions varied from complete disbelief to panic and it quickly become apparent that each government would be looking after its own people and did not want to take part in any kind of combined effort. Some cooperation would no doubt take place between previous allies, such as Japan and the Commonwealth, but for the moment no one know what lay out in space or if there would even be any habitable worlds beside Earth. Certainly in the short term, some exploitation of the solar system might be required as the limited supply of some trans-Newtonian minerals on Earth was rapidly running out. With limited resources and potentially limited habitable real estate, there was significant scope for conflict even as humanity tried to save itself from destruction.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Steve Walmsley »
 
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