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.

“	[Humans] fought WWI with basic weapons, WWII with advanced weapons, and WWIII with fully automated ones. Who knows how far off we are from WWIV.	”

World War Three is the global conflict that engulfed mankind from 2045 to 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 Neo-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 Neo-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

World War Three began in 2045. The exact date differs between reference materials:

• The first Confidential Files (part. 2) state the date as April 15th. This date is reused in ^RF Lee-EnfieldLee-EnfieldLee-Enfield's second Neural Upgrade story.
• The second Confidential Files (part. 2) state the date as March 2nd.
• In Slow Shock, it is stated that World War III had been going for seven years in Spring 2051, placing its start in 2044.

The first phase of the war began 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 Neo-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. Eager to find their own technological edge, the United States launched the Aurora program in South America in 2048 to find military applications for ELID creatures.

In March 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 state the war ended on June 29th, 2051.
• The second Confidential Files state the war began on 2 March 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 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.
• In Eclipses & Saros, Operation Couatl is said to have taken place during World War Three, and in 2051.
• In the Secret Documents of Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, the report “Global Affairs and Impacts on Religion” mentions “the sudden end to World War III” in 2050.

Operation Tradewind was a devastating loss for the US. Over the next two months, the Soviets took control of the entire European front, signalling the end of the war. In response to the military defeat, political instability increased in the US, which in turn bolstered left-wing guerilla groups within occupied South America to launch offensives and retake major cities from the Americans. This led to the interruption of the Aurora program in August 2050, which was on the verge of a breakthrough with the discovery of Shrike cells. Plans to merge the Aurora unit with Germany's National Special Defense Technology Development Group were dropped when the latter was disbanded. Soon after, the American Civil War began and NATO collapsed and surrendered, causing widespread panic in the civilian population of Europe.

Though the Neo-Soviet Union and the Pan-European Union were considered the victors of the war, the equivalent of 3000 divisions had been killed in the intense and devastating combat, and no nation was left with enough troops and ordnance to carry any further offensive. Both the “victors”, the United States 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. Localized conflicts continued to emerge. 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 or most automated systems, which were no longer usable due to Collapse particle clouds. With the research on renewable energy effectively halted by WW3, Dolls were also used to rebuild the petroleum-related infrastructure thoroughly destroyed during the war and provide much-needed energy.

The Warsaw Pact used prisoners of war 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.

In Europe, Yellow Zones had mostly been spared by the devastation of the war, as combat concentrated on important logistics and communication hubs and armies made an effort to limit exposure of their dwindling forces to ELID. Social order was preserved due to continuous support of governments to their Yellow Zone settlements, so they wouldn't be recruited by enemy nations. But after the war ended and the Neo-Soviet Union increased its influence on the European continent, unrest emerged in many coastal Yellow Zones of Central and Western Europe, where anti-Soviet sentiment was prevalent. Former NATO conscripts returned to their homes, bringing with them bad rumors about the Neo-Soviets and the Pan-European Union, and increasing isolationist sentiment. As both the white and black markets became flooded with the military equipment left behind after the sudden collapse of NATO, these anxious populations armed themselves against a potential Soviet retaliation.

Besides successful businesses, international organizations such as Interpol, the Endangered Species Conservation Society, the Frise International Joint Scientific Research Association, the World Astronomical Research Union, the International Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the International Health Organization and various international regulatory financial institutions were active during the 2050s, many of them independent versions of organizations once federated under the United Nations. The UNs were eventually 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 species of plants and animals went extinct or near extinct after the Beilan Island incident and the war, including storks, flamingos, penguins and humpback whales. Even deer and squirrel sightings have become a rare occurrence. The size of trees had also been affected.

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 · Shrike · 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 · Fox Sisterhood · Germany · Global Rescue Foundation · 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 · Galatea Corporation · I.O.P. · Svarog Heavy Industries · Ultilife · Universal Anything Services · WAVE