World War Three

"The truth is much more complicated than you think."

This article is written from a Lore perspective. It contains spoilers and different reference materials might be contradictory.

World War Three is the global conflict that engulfed mankind starting 2 March 2045 until 2050 or 2051 following the First Beilan Island Incident. Along with the Collapse Fluid clouds, the war destroyed most habitable lands as well as many nations. The political face of mankind was changed to a completely new state as superpowers were brought to their knees, eventually leading to the emergence of two superpowers in the aftermath: the Union of Rossartrism Nations Coalition and the Antarctic Union.

The war bolstered the development of Tactical Dolls and autonomous heavy weapon platforms to replace a rapidly-decreasing quantity of manpower. If World War One is considered to be the first time electricity was weaponized on a large scale, World War Three is when autonomous technology made its place in mankind's palette for warfare.

Background

The First Beilan Island Incident took place in Shanghai, China, in 2030. A large cloud of Collapse Fluid was released from an underground relics site and was quickly spreading destruction on Earth. Finger-pointing worsened already existing tensions in international political relations to the breaking point and populations were in desperate need of livable lands and resources, sparking the global conflict.

The spark that ignited the tense global political situation occurred in Germany. The 2035 Northern Lights Incident bathed Central Europe in collapse fluid radiations, including most of Northern and Eastern Germany. Southern Germany received most of the refugees, and when the German government decided to follow the neocolonialist movement of the EU instead of trying to rehabilitate the contaminated areas, violence started to brew between German citizens. Rumors of their political and industrial leaders leaving for the safety of Antarctica only worsened the situation. In 2042, the economic crisis in Ukraine led to an armed revolution in the eastern part of the country, and the Ukrainian Civil War broke out. When Kiev fell to East Ukraine, the EU finally intervened and mediated the split of the country during the Bucharest Agreement of June 2043, in an effort to stop a potential revolutionary wave in the rest of Europe. This was perceived by the New Soviet Union as the EU encroaching on their territory.

When the German Liberal Democrats and Christian Democratic Union invoked the National Emergency Act and conducted political arrests to stop the Social Democrats from dissolving the Parliament, the German Civil War started on 14 November 2044. The opposite factions being supported by the EU-US alliance on one side and the Soviets on the other side. On 1 December 2044, Soviet airborne troops circled around the EU surveillance radars in Poland and successfully landed at Schönefeld Airport, which allowed them to provide tanks and other heavy weapons to the East Germans. Six days later, the EU rapid-response forces entered Berlin without resistance but soon found the barricades prepared by the Soviet Army on Straße des 17 Juni. When US joined the conflict to back up the EU, World War Three began soon after.

In the years leading to the war, many breakthrough were made in the development of autonomous and semi-autonomous legged weapon platforms, able to bring heavy firepower to even the roughest terrains. When the United Nations collapsed in 2044, armies the world over scrambled to modernize their equipment with platforms reaching from 0.5 to over 10 meters tall and weighing from 10 to 35 tons from Sangvis Ferri, SIMATIC, Kirov Robotics, Chelyabinsk Mechanics, Lower Tajir Locomotive Works, Omsk Transport Machinery Plant and General Dynamics. Tactical Dolls struggled to find a place on the battlefields however, with even the most advanced Sangvis Ferri Ripper design failing to live up to military expectations.

As the world descended into violence, the two secrets factions born from the ideals of Raeder Rossartre prepared their plans for mankind's survival. Rossartrists steered nations away from using Relic Technology during the war, as it would doubtlessly result in the complete destruction of mankind, encouraged the development of Tactical Dolls in prevision of post-war reconstruction, and pushed for the New Soviet Union's victory in the war in keeping with the Heartland of the World-Island theory. Meanwhile, Beaconists selected important people to invite them to take shelter from the war in Antarctica. When the war broke out, Hollow City, the main relics site in Antarctica, declared itself an independent and neutral nation before sealing its entrances and isolating itself from the world. It remained untouched during the war.

War

Phases one and two

On 2 March 2045, World War Three entered its first phase with the launch of the first nuclear ballistic missiles. However, satellite communications had been lost in many parts of Earth and missile systems became widely imprecise and easy to intercept due to guiding interference. Soviet secret nuclear submarines in particular reacted to the loss of communication and observation of saturation launches by launching their own nuclear missiles. They quickly lost control of them and failed to strike major cities, but created many radiation zones. The saturation strikes during the first part of the war failed to cause major damage, but effectively heightened international tensions.

The second phase of the war saw nations vie for stratospheric airspace to conduct plane-based nuclear strikes. Assaults against enemy defenses relied on strategic bombers carrying nuclear cruise missiles, with intense sea and air battles taking place to intercept these bombers. Eventually, most armies were left without fleets and planes, and with many devastated cities.

Due to the New Soviet Union's Ministry of Defense lack of trust in combat dolls technology, Sangvis Ferri and IOP were only ordered transport dolls to serve on supply lines for the first two years of the war, totaling over 10 000 units. By May 2047, manpower shortage on the frontlines and the United States' landing in Europe convinced the ministry to order combat dolls for field testing. Sangvis Ferri used the Ripper as the base for the specialized Jaeger and Vespid models, while IOP doubled down on their all-purpose CSD frame by building a new military spec variant, able to operate many types of weapons instead of specializing. The ministry planned to test the dolls on various frontlines before deployment against the US military in Germany, but when the US launched an armored assault campaign in August 2047, they had no choice but bolster their defense lines with barely tested combat dolls. Few of the 8000 units survived the campaign, but they nevertheless crushed the armored assault with startling efficiency, convincing the ministry to invest into combat dolls.

Phase three

The third phase of the war was a series of incredibly violent ground combats for the control of habitable land. Many of these areas were left devastated by combats. The Assault Artillery combat exoskeletons originally developed to fight ELIDs saw widespread use during ground combat due to the technical achievements in Tactical Doll technologies, used concurrently with autonomous main battle tanks and robotic assault platforms. Even mountain units had access to effective autonomous mobile mortars, howitzers and troop carriers mounted on four- and six-legged frames, effectively nullifying the traditional terrain advantage. These units could be organized into company-level armored assault formations under the direction of a single command vehicle, and just a few experienced tank commanders could lead an entire tank regiment. Robot platforms shot and even rammed each other in a renewal of traditional cavalry of sorts. Only the rapid depletion of available ammunition slowed these hypereffecient armies. By the third year of the war, this brutally effective mean of conventional warfare had depleted most of the resources of all armies, including reserve forces.

As early as November 2047, the Soviets deployed Tactical Dolls to the Lybian front. Three years later in 2050, SF and IOP models displayed vastly improved performances during Operation Tradewind, fighting alongside multi-legged assault platforms and swiftly breaking mountain defenses in Southern Italy and pressuring Rome to surrender. Sangvis Ferri's Jaegers Tactical Dolls were the favorite model at first due to IOP's CSD series being unreliable. With the help of former 90wish researchers, IOP's ACD-series Tactical Dolls, used during the Nordic campaigns, came to be the most used Tactical Doll model during the war, with 11 730 units produced.

Conclusion

Reference materials disagree on the end date of the war, placing it in either 2050 or 2051:

• The first Confidential Files defines the timeframe for World War Three from April 15th, 2045 to June 29th, 2051.
• The second Confidential Files state the war began in 2045 and lasted for 5 years. It then relates post-war events taking place in spring 2051.
• Shattered Connexion states the war ended in 2050.
• The World War Three entry in Project Neural Cloud's in-game Worldview reference states the war ran from 2045 to 2051.
• ^RF Hanyang Type 88Hanyang Type 88 's memories from her Neural Upgrade story run from January to May 2051. They are not stated to take place during World War Three, but involve heavy combat near a testing site for a military prototype.
• In Poincare Recurrence, Germany is stated to have been disarmed after the war in 2051.

After intense and devastating combat, the equivalent of 3000 divisions had been killed in combat, and no nation was left with enough troops and ordnance to carry any further offensive. The United States, New Soviet Union, Pan-European Union and other surviving nations were left with no other choice but to resume uneasy diplomatic talks. Nations agreed to restrict their dominions, at least until they could rebuild their armies.

Aftermath

For the next ten years, all countries faced problems with reconstructing their infrastructures and accommodating surviving civilian population. The philosophy of Rossartrism quickly became widely accepted as the best thought system under the circumstances. Nation-states that were mere shells of their former power reduced their domains to select large cities and industrial regions, paying the numerous emerging PMCs like Griffin and Kryuger to provide security services and find resources and shelter for the rest of their population. With the new demand for military ordnance, arms manufacturers new and old reaped large benefices. Specific Dolls models were developed to tackle problems such as astronomical research, impeded by the great amount of low-orbit debris, and the need for aerial navigators able to pilot without a functional satellite coverage.

The Warsaw Pact used prisoners of war were to clean up the battlefields and the mighty autonomous tanks used to wage destruction during the war were converted into agricultural machines. Protests erupted in Western Europe in the spring of 2051 over the lack of food, which were controlled by hiring PMCs organized by Eastern European veterans operating under the Soviet International Military Cooperation Bureau. Deployed in Europe and the new colonies in Africa, the PMCs faced the consequences of the abrupt end of the war: the diffuse lines of battle had led to the abandonment of a lot of military hardware, which found its way to the black market and into the hands of non-state actors opposing the PMCs. The military Tactical Dolls market picked up again as PMCs searched for new sources of manpower.

The United Nations were re-established in 2062 and the Union of Rossartrism Nations Coalition was formed in 2064 in order for the Rossartrists to increase worldwide cooperation and meet the harsh economic and labor requirements for mankind to recover from the war.

A considerable amount of various data was lost during the war, including the fate of the two subjects from the Black Lily and White Rose project, Lily and Rose, and ELID vaccines research. Several animal species went extinct or near extinct after the Beilan Island incident and the war, including flamingos, penguins and humpback whales. Even deer sightings have become a rare occurrence.

References

General List of Characters (Minor Characters) · List of Locations · Timeline · Rossartrism · Eurosky Low-Emission Infectious Disease · Epiphyllum · GAVIRUL Technology Assault Artillery · Automaton · Collapse Technology · Magrasea · OGAS · Parapluie virus · Pike · Relic Technology · Tactical Doll · Weight Bearing Events Beilan Island Incident · World War Three · Operation Couatl · Incident Zero · Butterfly Incident · Safe House 3 Raid · Plan Parapluie · Great Retreat · Paldiski Incident · Fireworks Incident · Battle of the Dead Sea · First Antarctic War Factions 90wish · Antarctic Union · Germany · Griffin & Kryuger · KCCO · Neo-Soviet Union · Pan-European Union · Paradeus · Sangvis Ferri · Union of Rossartrist Nations Coalition · United Nations · United States Corporations 16LAB · 42LAB · Cyber Media · I.O.P. · Svarog Heavy Industries · Ultilife · Universal Anything Services · WAVE