9Chapter: Time line part 1
AN: The part until the next is Bold sentence is an authors note, and though it is useful to understand the chapter it isn't strictly necessary, so you can skip it if you'd like though I'd advise you not to.
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Ok so I said in the last chapter this chapter will contain a timeline up until where we are in the story, so during first contact. I heavily underestimated just how large such a time-line would be if it goes into any detail at all about the backgrounds of things relevant to the story. So I'm splitting it into two parts: one till 22 September 2044 CE/AC, and another that starts on 23 September 2044 and lasts up until the start of the first contact war.
CE(common Era) and AC(After Christ) are pretty much the same thing just because ME has this whole 'we're not going to touch on the topic of religion with humanity anywhere' thing they changed it. I'll use CE because that is the most likely to be used during interactions with another species when you're not trying to convert them to a religion.
Also, I will likely have to rewrite chapter 7 a lot since I just read it back and realised that I wrote certain things in the POV of a person that I meant to have as part of either an uninformed persons POV or 3rd person, and keeping it like this will ruin the plot somewhat so yeah I'll also be working on that.
The citadel council remains roughly the same as in canon from their start until first contact with humanity, with mainly the human part, Quarian history and the part with the Protheans changing. This will of course have some effect on the Citadel Council and its wars, however because of inherent arrogance of one of the species (you all know whom I'm referring to…) it will be a lot less noticeable then it would be in a regular society until 2157 CE.
For the remainder I'm mostly expanding upon things seen in regular time-lines so a gigantic war that cost billions of lives isn't summed up in: ''The Geth gain sentience, Quarians become afraid and try to take them down, this fails and Quarians are dead, Council are dicks so Quarians wander through the void.''
Which is pretty much how most time-lines seem to sum up every pretty much everything that happens in Citadel space except for the Krogan Rebellions and the First contact war: keep it to less than 3 sentences and mention only the bare bones.
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Now I need to talk about something else a bit. When I post casualty counts of armies in specific battles (such as a number of those in the Indian Civil War), they will contain the casualties among all types of vehicles, troops and other such things, even if there are no casualties, as long as those troops were part of that army during the battle.
For example, in a battle where one side has both tanks and IFV's (Infantry Fighting Vehicles, such as Armoured Personnel Carriers and Recon vehicles) and the other only has IFV's, and then only IFV's on both sides take casualties the report will look like this.
Side A: 0 tanks, 4 IFV's destroyed, 20 soldiers dead, 8 soldiers injured, 3 IFV's lightly damaged.
Side B: 12 IFV's destroyed, 70 soldiers dead, 26 injured but captured by the opponent.
In this situation Side A would also be the attacking group, since I post those as the upper one, while the defending group has everything noted down below them. I hope this makes sense at least on some level, if not please post a review about it.
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And the Authors Note is over, onto the chapter
Timeline for AU Mass Effect:
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48450 BCE
The most powerful organic race currently alive in this galaxy, the Protheans, decide to both literally and figuratively play Gods by splicing genetics of all so called 'primitive' races together to create a highly unstable serum, and then put this into the DNA of some Asari on their Homeworld of Thessia, forever changing Asari biology.
While the Asari are changed heavily physically, the effect isn't anywhere near to what the Protheans wanted, and as such they perform a second experiment on top of it: Is it possible to create an entire species of biotic soldiers by performing an Element Zero saturation on the planet they live on?
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48430 BCE
So far the second experiment seemed to be working as was hoped for, causing no more experiments sanctioned by the Prothean Empire to happen, because of their fear that any more changes might damage the capabilities of what the Emperor sees as his future slave soldiers.
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48420 BCE
As another side experiment, one of the Protheans inserts some of his DNA into the body of a young Asari child, just to see what would happen. The effects of this, and especially the many tragedies this single action would cause, would forever remain unknown to the Protheans.
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48410 BCE
The Prothean Empire has finally won their centuries long war with the Synthetic race that called themselves 'Metacon'. While celebrated without end, the lower level of alertness caused by this final victory will later be seen as the main reason why the Reaper forces were able to take down the Citadel station's defending fleet as easily as they did.
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48400 BCE
The Reapers first start their invasion of the Prothean Empire, by activating the Mass Relay that ends in the Citadel, with the battle for it devastating the overall leadership of both the Protheans and most of their vassal races. At this time the Reapers also use their control of the relay system to turn most of them off to stop Protheans from travelling between systems to re-enforce each-other in a timely manner. They make the mistake however that they do not understand how Prothean FTL communication works, and as such this attack warns all organic races in the galaxy of what is happening.
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48360 BCE
While the Reapers enjoyed a number of devastating early victories, they are now being ground down in close to a stalemate, since while they hold an extremely large advantage over the organic races in space, their ground forces are little more than cannon fodder to their enemies, causing them to need to send multiple Reapers of at the least destroyer level down to the ground with the troops to give them a good chance at victory.
This, in combination with the fact that the Protheans are the most advanced, well trained and well-organised opponents both in space and on the ground that they have faced in close 2 million years, while they are advancing and winning planets, their progress becomes slower each year and at great costs to their ground forces, large losses among their starfighters/drones and heavy damage to themselves, the repairs of which slow down the take-over of other systems even more.
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48350 BCE.
At great costs the Protheans and their subordinate races have managed to slow the reaper invasion down to little more than a snail's pace, and while they are still losing, they can stretch this for at the very least centuries, possibly even millennia. While they have no way of knowing this, their opponents, the ones they have started calling the Reapers, are starting to gain a form of twisted respect for the Protheans by this point, and are planning to make this race the template of multiple new Reapers and making the surviving indoctrinated Protheans into their Elite/most capable ground forces and also to have them form the base of a new Reaper Capital ship type.
This twisted respect also causes them to see past the arrogance they've gained from the relatively quick and easy victories in the 40 or so cycles before this, and instead of only producing 1 Dreadnought Reaper and 5 or 6 Destroyer Reapers like they had done for most of those cycles, they plan on making 8 of the former, and at least 50 of the latter though they know that even then this won't make up for the losses that they have suffered in space by this point in time, let alone the losses they suffered on the ground.
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48340 BCE
By this point in time, the Protheans have learned enough about the Mass Relays to re-activate the de-activated ones in the territory they still control and start the creation of a smaller one that leads directly towards the Citadel.
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48300 BCE
The Reapers are now advancing somewhat faster again, because of the sheer losses the Protheans suffered and their retaking command of the Relay system. However, the research team in Illos determines that going to the Citadel right now is useless since they would just be obliterated by the Reaper capital ships surrounding the station. They are put in Cryo Pods and will be woken up by the V.I after either the Prothean Empire has lost and the reapers have retreated, or when the fighting will get heavy enough that there will be too few enemies on the other side of the Miniature Relay for the opponent to take the team down.
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48265 BCE
The Reapers finish production of the first 20 destroyers, some created from captured and dead Protheans, most of these made from other, smaller species of this cycle, with another 31 destroyers and 8 Dreadnought class Reapers on their way. Unlike in previous cycles, the Reapers now also start converting enemy dead into their unwilling cannon fodder for in atmosphere forces while still on the battlefield, because of how dangerously low the amount of troops that remained from previous cycles is running. The demoralising factor of their own friends and families rising up from the dead to attack them causes the Reaper advance against the Protheans to speed up once again.
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48245 BCE
In their most dire hour, the Protheans managed to create a particle-beam rifle, which has the great advantage that it both passes through opposing Element Zero based shields with ease, and it also doesn't ever need to be reloaded or fed supplies in any other way outside of repairs done if it is damaged during combat. They also learned quickly afterwards how to create starfighter and tank compatible/sized versions of this rifle, finally giving their ground forces a weapon that has an advantage over the Reaper Destroyers when these enter atmosphere to serve as heavily armoured and shielded artillery platforms.
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48225 BCE
To better defend themselves against these new weapons of the Protheans, for the first time in dozens of cycles, the overall design of an entire Reaper ship class is changed heavily, with the Destroyers now all getting the same energy attack diminishing shields that the Dreadnought Reapers have, so that they will have less losses in ships sent to be ground support artillery while also making them more useful in knife fighting range GARDIAN duels in space.
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48220 BCE yi
Now truly realizing that they are losing and will almost certainly lose the entire war, the Prothean Empire begins retreating most personnel from research outposts near primitive species that still haven't left their home-worlds, hoping that this will have the Reapers leave them alone. While doing this the buildings oft hide Cryo Chambers that can hold up to 1000 Protheans, with the intent to use these to hide their people until the Reapers are gone, then have either the V.I. or if that fails, a scouting party of a primitive species, open up the chambers and release the Protheans.
They also leave 3 female members of their species behind on the Asari home world of Thessia, to serve as religious figures and leaders for the newly sentient species to guide them into becoming the leading species of the next cycle. This later fails due to their warnings and knowledge being either hidden or lost through time, while many begin picturing the Goddess Athame and her two assistants as Asari in looks, instead of the foreign Prothean ones.
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48200 BCE
The Reapers now unleash all gathered and created ships based off Protheans and the other species of this cycle upon them, to test the ships efficiency. The tests go well, with the 51 Destroyer Reapers and 8 Dreadnought Reapers taking out the 1 dreadnought, 16 cruisers and 28 frigates defending the system without too much trouble and only losing 3 destroyers and a large number of drone fighter/interceptors to the opposing force. This was both due to them using Prothean tactics against opponents that had prepared for Reaper tactics, and because of their numerical and technological advantages over the Prothean defending force.
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48140 BCE
While studying the remains of a species that existed roughly fifty thousand years before them, the Protheans manage to find the plans of a supposed anti-reaper weapon, that if fully realized and undamaged, will target Reaper-code only, and as such ignore every other being, organic or synthetic. It can still be used if damaged, however then it is a lot less precise, and instead of only targeting Reapers it would work as a EMP for anything that is not fully organic and more advanced than for example a steam engine, including all relays and the Citadel itself.
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48100 BCE
While the Protheans held out for 3 full centuries, defeated a number in the low trillions of the Reaper's ground forces from previous cycles and took down the largest amount of reaper ships in millions of years, they have now all but lost the war, with only 1 system still visibly fighting back. This system is led by forces from the planet that would in the next cycle be called Eden Prime.
The Protheans have gathered whatever ships remained from their navy, which while still in the hundreds is not anywhere near enough to face the tens of thousands of Reaper ships getting ready to take them out, with millions of ground forces readying themselves for a last stand, that was also hoped to work as a cover-up so that a group of close to a million survivors in an underground Cryo bunker, would remain hidden.
The plan is that they would start rebuilding and assisting currently still primitive races in becoming strong enough that the Reapers would be defeated in the next cycle, in case their first plan, a 'Crucible' that might be able to take out the Reapers, fails.
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48099 BCE
While they held on with all their strength, fought tooth and nail and took down pretty much all of what remained of the Reaper ground troops from before this cycle and a large number of the Huskified Protheans, the Protheans have finally lost the fight. Their Crucible super weapon they intended to use was sabotaged because some partially indoctrinated Protheans thought it could be adjusted to control the Reapers instead of destroying them. In reality it just destroys the devices ability to function. The hiding of the close to a million strong group went wrong because of an extremely recently indoctrinated Prothean learning of it after seeing a number of others enter the bunker and not go back out.
He informs the Reapers and they send him and some other Proto-Collectors (huskified Protheans, but with some of the cybernetic additions later added to every Huskified Prothean not used in the creation of new Reapers to create Collectors) into the facility while most of the Cryo pods are already activated.
They destroy tens of thousands of pods until in a last ditch effort the V.I. guarding the facility sets off a load of bombs to try to take them out. It works, but also at the cost of both most of the power generators and its personal ability to wake people up from Cryosleep. This causes it to focus on sustaining the leader of the group, while also sending a message towards whatever Beacons are still active.
It becomes corrupted quickly, but reads: ''If any being comes across this and understands, this is Prothean V.I. kdoiewfed I am here by sending the coordinates of this and another potential facility. All personnel in both of the facilities will most likely be in Cryosleep, and in at least one of them, possibly both of them, they cannot be woken up without outside interference. The locations are kdoiewfed and kdoiewfed . Beware the Reapers and prepare for their coming (insert the vision gained in game 1 on Eden Prime).'' A big problem that the heavily damaged/injured V.I. could not remember in this state was that only beings with either Prothean DNA or Prothean mindset/beings with the Prothean language installed in their head could actually access the first part of the vision and see the second part of it clearly, instead of the first one not being visible at all and only seeing some disjointed images of the second one which is what will happen to any unchanged member of the next cycles species.
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48070 BCE
The V.I in the facility on Illos wakes up whatever personnel managed to survive the long time they have been in cryo pods, with the war having gone on for much longer than expected. Because of this, only the 12 best scientists in the group, that were prioritised above all others and as such got more energy to their pods, and 4 mechanics, have survived the experience. Saddened by the knowledge that they would never be able to rebuild the Prothean race, and not knowing about the other contingency plans in place because of how early they went into cryo sleep, they decide that since they will die out anyways, they might as well give the races of the next cycle a fighting chance. They activate the relay, all 16 scientists and 3 of the mechanics going to the other side.
Meanwhile, the 1 mechanic that remains behind is given the task to reprogram the V.I. in such a way that it will from now on prioritize three things above all else, its own survival, to keep any sentient indoctrinated by Reapers as far away from the miniature relay as possible. And lastly, to if the facility is ever found by non-indoctrinated sentient beings, assist them in any way it can to prepare them for their own war against the Reapers.
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48069 BCE
After months of trying to get it right, the team finally manages to re-program the keepers, whom will never be able to open the Citadel's Relay to where most of the Reapers reside in between their 'cycles' of their own power again, nor will the Reapers ever again be able to take remote control of them to do their dirty-work in taking out the Citadel's defences. The only way the Relay command can be undone and even then, only this specific command can be undone, is if an organic types in a specific code in the central tower of the Citadel, while said organic has the same properties that allow somebody to properly understand a beacon. However they are now starved, and have scavenged and eaten what little food there was left on the Citadel. They die within days afterwards, with the hope that they have given the next cycle a chance to be able to fight the Reapers on a much more equal ground than they themselves were forced to do.
End of the Prothean era.
Council founding era:
(Mostly the same as in canon, and even then most of the changes that are there would spoil certain parts/plot points in the story if I mention them in this list, though I do expand on the explanations provided by canon.)
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13,000 BCE
The Turians of Palaven begin to develop civilization around this time.
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6000 BCE
Seeking to escape the imminent explosion of their sun, an unknown alien race constructs an AI-managed starship equipped with supercomputers containing a virtual world, into which some one billion of the aliens transfer their consciousnesses in a last ditch attempt to have their species survive.
Because of their technological level the ship doesn't have a FTL, but instead uses regular engines to go at 70% of the speed of light while the ship is made to be able to survive multiple millennia without needing much in the way of repairs. The ship begins a journey throughout the galaxy which lasts for the next 8,000 years. Less then three months after they start the journey their sun explodes, just a week before the second ship of its type would have been ready.
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1900 BCE
Tuchanka, the Krogan homeworld, enters the nuclear age. In a global conflict, weapons of mass destruction are released, triggering a nuclear winter. In the resulting devastation, Krogan society devolves into a collection of warring clans. Before this, the Krogan Civilization was a relatively prosperous one, with near complete peace within all nations themselves while the most prestigious positions and revered positions in society were for the female members that of religious leader, for the males the position of being an architect, and for both the military was the second most prestigious career.
However a large extremist group somehow managed to take control of one of the nuclear launch silos, causing a MAD scenario to activate, in which all nuclear weapons on the planet launched themselves at any potential threat, creating the earlier mentioned nuclear winter and killing off 93% of the planets population.
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1800 BCE
A supernova propels the Mu Relay, the only point of access to the remote Pangea Expanse, out of position. Concealed somewhere in the dense nebula formed by the supernova, the relay's position is effectively lost for centuries. The relay itself is found by the Ranchi during the proxy war they are forced into by the Reapers against the Citadel Council, however after their defeat no sentient knows where it is until shortly before the Reapers start their harvest of the Galaxy again.
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580 BCE
Because of the amount of Eezo that was on their planet, their species wide ability to manipulate Element Zero, and clues left behind by the Protheans specifically for this purpose, the Asari learn how to use Element Zero/Eezo with some efficiency only very shortly after entering what for most other species time line would have been the so called gunpowder age.
This has caused the idea to spread among the Asari that all forms of technology other then Mass Effect can never truly reach the height of Eezo reliant ones, which will cause them to get in trouble with new races that do not use this technology anywhere near as much later on. It will also scares them away from finding out alternative non-Mass Effect solutions to problems caused by using Mass Effect devices for certain things.
After developing faster than light (FTL) space-faring capabilities based upon Prothean technology, the Asari begin to explore the mass relay network, and eventually discover the large Citadel space station at a hub of many mass relays.
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520 BCE
The Salarians discover the Citadel and after some caution and espionage, they open diplomatic relations with the Asari.
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Early Council Era 500 BCE to 1 CE
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500 BCE
The Citadel Council is formed. The Asari and Salarians together colonize the Citadel and establish it as a centre of the galactic community, led by the Council. This year is also known as 0 GS, the beginning of the Galactic Standard (GS) timeline.
This meeting also leads to the founding of the Citadel Defence Force and the Citadel Defence Reservist Force, or the CDF and the CDRF, both with a Navy and Army branch and different groupings and classes in each of these branches.
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498 BCE
As a gesture of openness with their new Asari allies, the Salarian Union opens the records of the League Of One. Under threat, the League responds by assassinating every member of the Union's inner cabinet; Special Task Group operatives then hunt down and eliminate the League.
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400 BCE
First contact is made with the Volus. Eventually, the Citadel Council commissions the Volus to draw up the Unified Banking Act, which establishes a standard galactic currency known as the credit and links all galactic economies.
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400 BCE
The Turian Hierarchy discovers element zero in a nearby moon after finding the old Prothean research outpost situated there.
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380 BCE
The Turian Unification War occurs. The increasingly isolated and xenophobic colonies on the frontiers of Turian space go to war with each other. After years of fighting, the Turian Hierarchy sweeps in and pacifies the remaining factions. Animosity between Turian colonies continues for decades afterwards.
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370 BCE
The Council grants the Volus the honour of being the first non-Council species with an embassy at the Citadel, rather than a Council seat.
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250 BCE
First contact with the Batarians takes place, which marks the start of constant low scale conflict between forces of the Citadel Council and the Batarian Hegemony.
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200 BCE
The Asari discover the Elcor home system and help the Elcor locate and activate their nearest Mass Relay. "Within one Elcor lifetime" they establish a regular trade route to the Citadel and are granted an embassy. Because of their large size and physical abilities, a relatively large number of Elcor join the Citadels Defence Reservist Force, which will be called to arms in case of Galactic Scale warfare.
This isn't too well thought of in mainstream Elcor culture, where peaceful discussion is oft seen as the way to solve problems, not the application of violence.
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150 BCE
The Batarian Hegemony gets awarded an embassy at the Citadel, more because of the Council getting tired of the amount of their time the Hegemony representative takes up complaining about the unfairness of it all rather than any actual service given by the Batarians.
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120 BCE
First contact is made with the Quarians, however due to the fact that it is a fleet of Batarian Hegemony employed slavers making first contact a war breaks out between the two groups. The fighting turns in favour of the Quarians soon, with them having much better maintained ships and better trained naval personnel then the Batarians do. Their cyber-warfare is also of a much higher quality. Within a few weeks the Batarian fleets sent into the region are all defeated with minimum losses on the Quarian side, and while the Quarians are preparing a counter-attack the Asari Republics step in to try to negotiate peace.
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119 BCE
After a several months long armistice the Citadel Council finally manages to negotiate peace between the Quarians and Batarians, with the Quarians finally agreeing not because they are ready to forgive the unprovoked Batarian attack on their space, but more because they do not want to end up in a war with all the other species that were part of the Citadel. As part of the treaty the Quarian Confederacy gets an embassy on the Citadel.
Due to the skill the Quarian soldiers have shown in their battles with the Batarian Hegemony, with their mechanics, heavy infantry and armour divisions especially showing much promise, the Citadel Defence Reservist Force almost immediately lobbies for recruitment offices on the Quarian Homeworld. Many young and out of luck Quarians join, quickly becoming the second largest group in it after the Elcor.
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110 BCE
First contact with the Hanar is made, with the species quickly being integrated in the Citadel society and given an Embassy, for the devotion they share with the Asari over the Protheans.
Council Era - War and Rebellion (1 CE - 900 CE)
1 CE
The Rachni, a species of highly intelligent hive-minded insects, are discovered when a Citadel expedition opens a dormant mass relay leading to their star systems. The Rachni prove to be hostile and begin a war with the rest of the galaxy. Negotiation with the Rachni Queens is impossible because they cannot be contacted in their underground nests on the toxic Rachni worlds.
The CDF, CDRF and national militaries of all member races are called upon to join the fight against the Rachni. The Batarian Hegemony on a governmental level refuses, though volunteers of young lower class Batarians stream in to join the fighting, fearing that if the Council is beaten Batarian space, and as such their homes and families, will be the next target.
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5 CE
On the ground, the Salarians provide the intelligence operatives and saboteurs, the Asari provide the light infantry, a large number of the medical personnel and biotic support, while the Quarians and Elcor provide most of the heavy infantry and armoured units with the Volus providing the remaining non-combatant units and a large amount of the in atmosphere air support, the remainder of which is provided by a mix of Quarians, Batarians and Salarians. In space most of the vessels currently in the fight are either Asari or Quarian with Volus and Batarian ships joining in to defend shipping lanes and to give more firepower to the ground forces, while Salarian ships serve as scouts mainly, while both Salarian ships and Batarian privateers work at disrupting Ranchi supply lines whenever possible.
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160 CE
The Rachni Wars continue. The Salarians make first contact with and uplift the now primitive Krogan, manipulating them into acting as disposable pawns and meat shields for the Citadel Council forces. The Krogan prove able to survive the harsh environments of the Rachni worlds and pursue the Rachni into their nests, systematically eradicating queens and eggs.
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290 CE
The Ranchi forces outside of their home system have been wiped out by this point, with the Krogan still heading the charge as shock-troops when on planets while the Quarians provide most of the ships with the Asari delivering the flag ships and space artillery support with their new dreadnought fleet.
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300 CE
The Rachni are declared extinct. In gratitude for their aid during the Rachni Wars, the Council rewards the Krogan a new home-world. Free of the harsh environment of Tuchanka, the Krogan population explodes.
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310 CE
The Krogan begin to expand exponentially, colonizing many new worlds.
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410 CE
Growing concerns about their expansion lead to the founding of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel.
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693 CE
Beelo Gurji, a Salarian operative, is appointed the first Spectre by the Citadel Council.
Krogan Rebellions
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700 CE
Krogan warlords leverage veterans of the Rachni Wars to annex territory from other races in Citadel Space. Eventually the Council demands withdrawal from the Asari colony of Lusia, but the Krogan refuse. A pre-emptive strike is made on Krogan infrastructures by the Spectres. The Krogan Rebellions begin.
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701 CE
Much like early on during the war against Rachni, it are the member species that have to fight as the main heavy ground forces, with the Asari and Salarians mainly performing spec ops and light infantry duties. This to the great annoyance of these member species, since the Asari alone already outnumber most of them put together in total population numbers.
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725 CE
The Citadel Council makes first contact with the Turian Hierarchy around this time and persuades them to aid in the war. After the Krogan respond to the initial Turian offensive by devastating Turian colonies with weapons of mass destruction, the Turians vow to stop the Krogan from ever becoming a threat again.
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745 CE
The Vol Protectorate is accepted as a client state of the Turian Hierarchy, with positive treaties and agreements for both in the eyes of the Citadel Council. The Volus themselves and also both the Elcor and the Quarian governments object to this, but with the war going on they do not have the ability to push it since they need the Hierarchies assistance badly.
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750 CE
The Turians decide to use the Genophage, a Salarian created biological weapon that causes large amount of stillbirths if used on Krogan, and bombard multiple Krogan held planets including Tuchanka with it. This decision is made after they came to the realisation that the Krogan would never give up as long as they could replenish their population fast enough to replace all losses in manpower overtime with ease.
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775 CE
Due to both the morale effect of the genophage and the lack of re-enforcements to replace dead troops, the Krogan are finally being driven back instead of always being on the offensive.
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799 CE
The Krogan Rebellions are over, while there will still be some small scale fighting in the following decades, Krogan clans on Tuchanka have for the most part surrendered out of fear of being driven into extinction. Shortly after this the Krogan devolve into heavy infighting for resources, land and fertile population members on their home-world.
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800 CE
The Turians fill the military and peacekeeping niche left by the decimated Krogan. The Citadel Conventions are drawn up in the wake of the conflict, in an attempt to prevent future conflicts of this scale.
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801 CE
The total losses of the Krogan rebellions are counted up, and end up being 5,8 billion, this number including every death on both sides of the war caused either directly or indirectly by said war during the war. However the aftereffects will continue killing the Krogan people for the next centuries not only by causing many stillbirths among the Krogan, but also by many of the members of the Krogan species committing suicide because of the amount of their own children that die in those circumstances.
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Council Era - Expansion (900 CE - 2157 CE)
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830 CE
The Turians are granted a seat on the Citadel Council in recognition for their service in the Krogan Rebellions. The fact that none of the other member species that supplied forces for this war have gotten any commendations outside of some small financial concessions for it is seen by many of those factions as an insult, including but not limited to the Quarian Confederation, Courts of Dekuuna (Elcor), the Batarian Hegemony (though this government is more angry because of the fact of being ignored by the Citadel Council then because they actually lost all that much in the fighting) and the Vol Protectorate (Volus).
The last of whom are also still enraged that they went from the third most important species in the Citadel to being the subordinate species of what they see as 'Imperialistic warmongers '.
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1500 CE
Extensive and unchecked industrial expansion on the Drell home-world Rakhana begins taking a significant toll on the planet's environment.
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1600 CE
The first sightings of the Collectors are reported in the Terminus Systems. In Citadel space, the claims are dismissed as unsubstantiated rumours and tall tales.
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The Morning War
1894 CE
The Geth, machines created by the Quarians as a source of cheap labour, start becoming self-aware. At first the Quarian Confederacy doesn't see much wrong with this, and outside of some small scale protests by both a number of the newly self-aware Geth and some Quarians to give them more rights it is for the most part a peaceful process, though the politicians aren't sure what to do about it and send a message to the Citadel Council asking for advice on the situation after one of the Geth Units asks 'Does this unit have a soul?', and though the question has been asked before, this time around the owner of the Unit panics instead of going into either a debate with the Unit or simply ignoring it like the other Quarians before her did.
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The Citadel Council on the other hand becomes enraged over this, and decides to take the old Prothean approach to this problem: ''Anything that isn't organic doesn't have a right to self-determination and if it disagrees it isn't anything more than a disobedient tool.'' They inform the Confederation that if they do not start shutting down the Geth, the Council will force them to do so by parking multiple Turian fleets in the orbit of Rannoch and blowing up any building that has even the slightest chance of housing Geth platforms.
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1895 CE
Fearing what a war with the Council would cost their people, and feeling that they wouldn't be able to win even with their newly sentient allies, the Confederacy leadership decides to accept the Council order with a heavy heart. This ends up in a disaster, causing the Geth to revolt after some of their programs notice what is happening, with a small number of Quarian citizens siding with the Geth while most side with the Confederacy. The citizens siding with the Geth end up captured or dead early on in the war for the most part, causing the Geth to feel something they have never truly felt before: a deep desire for revenge. Due to their inexperience with such strong emotions, especially as enhanced as they are due to the Geth Collective's hive-mind they are swept away by it and are near completely overtaken by bloodthirst.
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1897 CE
The Confederacy is losing the war badly, with them having lost Rannoch and most of their colonies by this point after systematically being thrown off the planets by enraged Geth units. After their latest plea to the Citadel Council for support once again goes unanswered, they decide the best way to save their people is to gather what ships they have left and load all remaining Quarian civilians on them, while some of their soldiers and both those ships too damaged to make the journey and some not FTL capable smaller ships manned by volunteers remain behind to slow down the Geth forces as much as possible.
The plan works, but once the fleet manages to get out of the Perseus Veil and get close to the Citadel, the Council revokes their right to an embassy on the Citadel and throws them out. This in their eyes is a perfect punishment for creating the Geth and then failing to destroy the newly born synthetic species.
They also forbid any of the governments part of the Citadel Council to keep alive a stream of resources towards the Quarian Migrant Fleet. This enrages and shocks not only the Quarians but also to a lesser extent the Volus and Elcor, who now more than ever realise that if the council ever considers a problem they have dangerous to confront, they will be abandoned without any hesitation.
The only government truly happy with this outcome is the Batarian Hegemony, who have in their mind now gained the upper hand in the centuries long rivalry and cold war between them and the Quarian Confederation. Their slaver raids against the Quarian Migrant Fleet however fail miserably, since they don't seem to take in account that most of the remaining Quarian sailors and soldiers are experienced combatants that fought much worse threats then some badly trained overconfident raiders.
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1898 CE
Against Council orders, the Courts of Dekuuna (Elcor) and the Vol Protectorate (Volus) governments send some credits and raw resources to the newly created Quarian Migrant fleet, but with the close watch of the Council this oft means they cannot give more then what is on government level small change and enough resources to repair a small part of the Fleet and setting up companies to give government paid shuttle rides back to the Fleet for stranded Quarians. The Quarians however are thankful for any assistance they get, and as such remain on friendly terms with the only governments that are doing their best to support them in their time of need. At this point 180 million Quarians are still alive in the known galaxy.
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1900 CE
An index done by the Geth shows that close to 3,9 billion enemy Quarians and 150 million Elcor soldiers and mercenaries hired by Volus credits died during the newly dubbed 'Morning War', while on their own side 4 billion programs and 200 million Quarians that sided with them also died. The current Geth population is 40 billion programs. (The average Geth physical body needs to house 150 to 200 programs to be capable of intelligent action even when it is near other Geth. Fully independent intelligent action only starts at 400. The main reason behind the low Geth casualties is that their programs in most cases can flee their bodies back to central hubs before the bodies are destroyed)
By this point in time they also have long since calmed down from their initial want for revenge, and are now for the most part horrified by how badly it affected them, causing the Geth to isolate themselves from the remainder of known space, but a large number of programs swear to themselves that if the Quarians as a species are ever threatened again, they will step in and defend them no matter what it takes.
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1910 CE
Sadly enough over the years, the same feeling of compassion towards the Quarians doesn't stay with most of the population of Council Space, with the exceptions of some of the Elcor and strangely enough most Krogan. The Krogan consider the Quarians and Elcor worthy opponents and also respect them for their often outspoken disagreement with the Citadel Council about whether or not the genophage should continue being refined and renewed on the Krogan, instead of only being a 1 time thing. Lastly they also see something of themselves in the Quarians: a once proud and respected race, now seen as nothing but barbaric beasts by the remainder of the galaxy.
The current Quarian population is 150 million, most of the deaths being caused by attacks from Citadel population on members of the flotilla out to gather resources.
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1921 CE
The Geth begin construction of a mega-structure designed to house and simultaneously run every Geth program in existence. Completion of the mega-structure, which would allow the Geth to maximize their collective processing capacity, is the long-term goal of Geth civilization.
They also discover how to create efficient plasma weaponry, however due to not having any internal wars or combat with Citadel forces, they have little reason to improve much upon it initially.
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Era of discovery
April 12 1961 CE
Yuri Gagarin aboard the Vostok 1 becomes the first human to travel in space. Humanity becomes a space-faring race.
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July 20 1969 CE
Apollo 11 lands on Luna, Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to walk on Luna, and the first human to walk on an astronomical object other than Earth.
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1980 CE
Aria T'Loak assumes control of Omega after defeating the space station's previous warlord in single combat. She mockingly bestows the title "Patriarch" on the broken Krogan, and uses him as a reminder to her enemies of her power.
The Quarian population is at this point down to 100 million, while the total Council population has currently reached 102 billion.
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1985 - 1991 CE
Giotto - First ESA deep space mission; first ESA mission to intercept an asteroid (Halley & Grigg-Skjellerup)
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1990
Launch of the Hubble telescope
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1991 CE
What would later be called the first ''Modern international cold war'' on Earth ends, with the Soviets being the ones to lose the war. Despite the numerous times where it was a close call, it eventually didn't devolve into a full on nuclear total war, with only proxy wars becoming hot zones for direct combat between the two ideologies. Though admittedly the number of these proxy wars and their casualty counts were very high.
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1997 CE
Sojourner touches down at Ares Vallis becoming the first rover to explore Mars. During its three months of operation, the rover captures more than 550 images of the Red Planet.
Huygens, First ESA mission to Titan; a Saturn moon
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2000 CE
The Hanar and Drell have first contact after a Hanar missionary vessel finds a drifted off derelict satellite and decides to follow its navigational records back to the Drell home-world. Shortly after hearing their story and seeing the state of the Drell home-world, the leader of the vessel decides to contact his superiors in the Illuminated Primacy and pleads for an evacuation force to save as many Drell as can be safely housed in Hanar territory. The leader of the Primacy, seeing this as her chance to act as they think the Protheans assisted and uplifted all species, decides to send all ships that can safely transport Drell to bring them to Kahje and Belan, their two colony worlds most suited for non-Hanar life. In the end close to 8000000 Drell are evacuated, but many more remain on their home-world, either to fight over whatever is left or to try to build it back up.
Later expeditions will add another 2 million to the number of Drell living away from their homeworld, this time around mostly being orphaned children found all around the planet that wouldn't have had much of a future if they weren't taken in by the Hanar.
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2003 CE
Mars Express, the first ESA mission to Mars and SMART-1, the first ESA mission to Luna happen in this year.
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2004 CE
Rosetta, the first ESA mission to orbit an asteroid (67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko) happens in this year.
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2005 CE
The first very basic computer that can think for itself with a moving physical body is created by humanity. This will later be considered the first 'synthetic dumb' A.I.
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2006 CE
Venus Express, first ESA mission to Venus and Huygens, the first successful landing on an outer Solar System world (Titan) happen during this year.
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2008 CE
Tensions start rising around the world with North Korea threatening to fire off nukes at any and all opponents, while Russia starts taking land from several of their neighbours whenever these neighbours have an internal conflict. The international community is angry about this but cannot do much without potentially starting an international nuclear war.
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2012 CE
Several countries start getting progress in their research into practical pulse laser weaponry. Though there is a large amount of competition, the researchers in Great-Britain, the Netherlands and the USA are getting the best results so far.
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2015 CE
Both the USA as well as a British and Dutch coalition bring out pulse laser weaponry, however the version from the USA turns out to be a glass canon. While possessing significantly more firepower than the one created in Europe, it has cooling issues due to a small flaw in the power delivery system and it cannot operate in any weather colder than 0 degrees Celsius or hotter than 35 degrees Celsius. Finally if somebody were to hit the device with even a single bullet from any fire-arm stronger than the average 9mm pistol it would stop functioning properly and have a 50/50 chance of either melting down or causing a self-destruct explosion if somebody attempted to use it afterwards.
The European design on the other hand only has half of its American counterparts firepower, but is very robust, has a significantly shorter cool-down period and can be used in any weather, no matter if its freezing at -12 degrees Celsius or a sweltering desert at 40 degrees Celsius. Though the first one isn't recommended since extreme colds can cause a loss of up to 10% in both range and firepower, and the second one isn't recommended because of a 15% longer cool-down period than usual. While the British got power systems and laser generators for the guns themselves to work, the Dutch scientists were the ones that designed much better versions of the targeting systems, cooling systems and outer shell for the devices.
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2016 CE
After a civilian passenger aircraft flying above Ukraine is shot down by pro-Russian rebels, an international incident surrounding both the disaster and the attempted cover-up of it by the Russian government cause anti-Russian feelings in the west to solidify, especially in the Netherlands, since a large number of the passengers where Dutch citizens.
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2017 20th of January
Donald Trump is inaugurated as president, starting a dark time for the formerly great federation the USA. He withdraws his country from a multitude of international agreements that benefit everyone world-wide, stops state funded research into cleaner and/or better energy sources, opens a large number of coal reliant factories and tries to force any press that speaks out against him to be shut down while also becoming known as 'the most fact-challenged American President in the History of modern fact checking' with 2373 wrong or misleading claims in his official statements during the first year of his reign as president.
He also tries, but fails to repeal several laws put into place by his predecessor Barack Obama, the reason for failure being the senate having enough of his lies and unproven claims especially after checking the laws meant to replace the former laws, which would not only cost the USA more money but also lower the quality of health-care countrywide. His claim that he will be the first president with an American space navy will later on also turn out to be a lie due to him souring relations between himself and most of the nations and groups world-wide that he would need to actually be able to create a reliable combat capable space ship.
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2017 4th of June CE
The first non-prototype versions of the 1st generation Pulse Laser Canons are introduced by the Dutch and British and sold to their European allies at production costs prizes. The Americans are offered, but president Trump orders the military to not accept it. The progress of installing them as the main canon of all frigates flying Dutch, British, Belgian and German flags is started. Most other countries in Europe remain behind for the moment and decide to mainly use them as anti-air and anti-ballistic missile defences for their most important cities.
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2017 CE
Great Britain decides after a very close vote during a referendum to leave the European Union, however instead of the economic growth they expected immediately after making the decision, they instead lose a lot of income right off the bat because of companies that relied upon the free trade between all Union members pulling assets out of the country.
International trade deals made by the Union on behalf of all its members no longer being valid lowers the income from export to parts of the world outside of Europe by 12%, while the import costs rise by slightly more than 14%. A large part of the population regrets voting for leaving the European Union within a few short months after the process has been started.
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2018 CE
The Dutch and British naval fleets have replaced all of the main guns of their frigates and destroyers with the new energy guns, that would later be designated as the 1st Generation Pulse Lasers, currently they are just known as Laser Canons.
Due to this change being overshadowed by other international news, a lot of leaders from other countries that would otherwise take notice of this and take this change seriously, ignore it for the most part due to their attention being focused either inward or towards the Middle East, the Ukraine or president Trumps behaviour in the USA.
At the same time Great Britain and The Netherlands are through arming their frigate and destroyer class vessels with the Pulse Lasers, the Germans and Belgians rely on Dutch mechanics to do the work on their ships for them.
Continued higher levels of participation within the EU and the effect of Great Britain leaving the EU causes the Dutch Admiral Herbert Broekman to be chosen as the new commanding officer of the EUNF, or European Union Naval Forces.
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2019 CE
After pressure has been rising between his country and the European Union for years Putin, the leader of Russia, decides he needs make some of the smaller members of the EU 'realize their place in the world' by forcing them to back down from the conflict. He decides to first target the Netherlands, while ideally targeting the Danes and Belgians after that operation has been successful.
His anger with these specific countries is that they found Russian spies within their borders and openly shamed Russia in the international scene by revealing them to the world, making them much less useful for future operations.
Due to being blinded by the success most his operations have had in recent years, he doesn't have many good backup plans that deal with if the operations fails due to being foiled by actions of the other nation, instead all backup plans are to deal with the clean-up if one of his own agents either turns traitor or is not competent enough to perform their part in the plan which would cause it to be exposed.
At the same time, unknown to anyone except the presidents of other EU countries and the high level members of the Dutch Ministry of Defence, the Netherlands builds three new satellites and sends them into orbit, however these satellites aren't regular ones, they are one-shot Laser WMD's that can be used to either A: take down a group of nuclear missiles from orbit or option B: send a 7 kiloton WMD hit down on a target anywhere around the world at the speed of light.
President Trump decides to leave the NATO, after calling all other members ''Useless leeches to us proud American people.''. Before proceeding to demolish the American government and throw the country into large scale civil unrest due to a six month long government shutdown because he wants the project of his wall getting built to start.
Meanwhile the actual problems the people that voted him into power wanted him to solve have barely been addressed at all, with many of them having actually become worse ever since he became the president. He is eventually deposed, however the country won't be able to overcome the problems caused by his actions for another 13 years.
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2020 CE 1st of June
The more detailed plan devised by the KGB following Putin's idea is put into action after gaining the approval of Vladimir Putin. The plan involves the kidnapping of 350 tourists spread out over the world while having a third party mercenary group start an attack on the island of Curaçao. The target Curaçao was chosen since it experienced a natural disaster recently, and as such will have less defences ready to ward off the attack.
While the first part of the plan actually goes as predicted for the most part, the second part doesn't because of inexperience amongst the mercenaries whom forgot to deploy modern anti-radar and anti-satellite technology. This caused them to be noticed close to 3 hours before they manage to reach Curaçao, and with all naval assets in the area being notified, the regional EUNF flotilla and Dutch law enforcement patrol ships manage to get to the Island before the mercenaries arrive. The end result of this is a naval battle that causes the entire mercenary fleet to be sunk and no more than 30 of the mercenary ground forces manage to get ashore, where that small number of mercenaries is dealt with by local law enforcement and Dutch military personnel with no casualties on the defending side and most of the mercenaries dead.
However the fact that the fleet was noticed so early also has a disadvantage, because the focus on this lowers the chance of them noticing the pattern of hundreds of tourists being kidnapped, some in the middle of a street in broad daylight, most from more discreet locations but all within 6 hours.
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2020 CE 2nd of June
The kidnapping reports from world wide stream in at the Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (Ministry of external affairs) in the Netherlands, surprising everyone with what happened. All clues paint a very bad image: the KGB and almost certainly the highest levels of the Russian government are involved in this. Interrogation of any of the captured mercenaries gives them nothing but dead ends, with none of them actually knowing who they truly worked for outside of him being a Russian man that spoke nearly accent-less English.
Fearing that this might mean a military confrontation with Russia, the current Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, decides that they need to prepare for the worst and tells all naval and orbital assets to prepare to be able to execute operation ''Breek de Beer'' (''Break the Bear'') at any moment, should it turn hostile.
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2020 6th of June CE
An anonymous message from Russia is sent to the address of the Minister-President(Prime minister) with information regarding the case of the missing tourists and a contact number. After reading the message he becomes enraged at first, though he calms himself afterwards as determination to get his people back no matter what starts growing in him. He then makes a call to the Dutch Monarch that unknown to him, will change the history of mankind:
''We hebben u nodig in een onderhandeling met Rusland over enkele problemen die ik liever niet over de telefoon vertel''(We need you in negotiations with Russia over a number of problems that I would rather not talk about over a phone call)
''Ik zal er binnen 10 minuten zijn'' (I will be there within 10 minutes).
After they meet up at the work palace of the King in Den Haag (The Hague) Mark Rutte explains everything to him, and he agrees to call the commander in chief of the army after the King suggests it. After they all meet up, they decide that operation Breek de Beer will start the moment the Russian president refuses to peacefully surrender the civilians to them without concessions short of becoming a Russian puppet state.
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2020 8th of June CE
Russia starts pulling back forces stationed abroad and quietly sends all of the kidnapped tourists back to the Netherlands. Their president also seems to have become a new, broken man and will not be re-elected into the seat of power again in the year after due to this. Because of these things happening, Russia suffers heavy loss of face in the international community and will not regain that for a long time to come.
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2021 CE
Due to how useful they proved to be in the Battle for Curacao, many governments develop a love for the idea of a laser armed naval fleet, and start either more intensive research into the devices, or opt for diplomatic approaches of the EU to see if they are willing to sell some to them.
After years of small to medium scale conflict happening all over the world, everything finally starts calming down, with new governments setting in place of more hostile or instable ones after most of these conflicts. This is not to say that the world is prefect, however the chance of a global nuclear war has decreased drastically in comparison to how high the chance was in the past two decades.
The Dutch government buys a large share in the 'Lightyear One' company and places a large order for them in all land based government vehicles. The company is known for building electrical cars that are able to function fully on solar power. They also convince other EU members to perform the same action.
(They have the maximum ability to drive 1000 kilometres before needing to fuel up, however because of the solar panel power system, even in the Netherlands this just means parking them outside for 9 hours in the summer or 18 hours in the winter, though if needed they can be fuelled up simply connecting them to an electrical network.)
At the same time, they also build six new nuclear power plants and install solar panels on all major government facilities to supplant the rising price of fossil fuels, these projects are projected to lower the need to import fossil fuels by 75% within 3 years. Soon after seeing the success of these actions, other EU members follow in their footsteps.
2022 CE
The once again increasing trade world-wide and newly available wealth in Europe has them restart old space programs that were left in the dust to deal with more immediate problems until now. Due to new innovations made by different companies in Europe in Solar and Nuclear engines, space worthy vessels can now be produced at a much lower cost then before, making it viable, even for smaller countries, to take part in it and provide both ships and crew members to international efforts.
At the same type, due to an increasingly small amount of government funds needing to be spent on importing fossil fuels in most of the EU's member states, they race ahead of most of their competitors in this area, which is noticed by the other world powers. World powers such as the USA and China emulate them, though they feel insulted that they need to copy the example of an 'inferior' conglomerate of nation states.
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8th of November 2025 CE
A research team in Japan has started on the process of creating an A.I. that is smarter than the current relatively 'dumb' A.I. programs available on the market.
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5th of December 2025
The death of Queen Elizabeth the second shocks the world. Though it was clear she was getting very old, people still expected her to live on, with the mythos surrounding her making her seem immortal to many. While the position of British monarch was by the time she became Queen mostly ceremonial, she still had a great social and cultural impact on not only Great Britain and the remainder of the world, being the longest lasting British ruler.
As her son has gotten dementia the previous year and thus wouldn't be able to handle his duties as a king very well, her grandson takes over instead, and starts a subtle campaign to make the idea of re-joining the EU more attractive then it currently is, considering right now 59% of the population supports it, but for it to work, they need 67% popular support.
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2nd of January 2026 CE
The death of another giant shocks the world. Originally seen as a short term replacement, Pope Francis the first whom was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, managed to take the Catholic church out of its downward spiral of losing members and losing the faith of the general public that was happening when he became the leader. He did this by making the church go back to its roots somewhat, in having them become the religion of the poor that defends the weaker and repressed members of society.
Following this mindset he made it a law for gay couples to be able to get married in a church, illegalise catholic versions of the 'Nashville' pact, cut out most of the corrupt higher tier members of the Catholic church and ensured that no matter what rank they have in the church, anyone suspected of crimes would have the legal capabilities of the country they performed said crimes in and that while the church will provide them with a lawyer, there will be no other legal assistance.
Lastly he also enlarged the population of the Vatican and changed its governing laws so that instead of being a non-hereditary absolute monarchy its governing system to a non-hereditary constitutional monarchy with a democratically chosen leader for the civilian government. While the Pope would remain the head of state and head of the military, he would lose most other abilities that were given to him as part of the original position 'King' of the Vatican that a Pope would gain once they became the leader of the Catholic church.
To quote him from one of his speeches: "I would like us to make noise, I would like those inside the dioceses to go out into the open; I want the Church to be in the streets; I want us to defend ourselves against all that is worldliness, comfort, being closed and turned within.''
and from another ''I would rather have the Church bleed out in the streets, defending the weak and defenceless, living to the founding spirit of our religion and die out fulfilling this goal rather than slowly die unnoticed on top of an ivory tower.''
The success of this was both seen and admired by many other religious groups world-wide, making them head more in that direction themselves too. It re-invigorated world-wide piety to religions, even causing numerical growth across the globe, though the percentages of religious and non-religious remain roughly the same world wide as the numerical increase doesn't fully match the global population growth.
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5th of June 2026 CE
Greece finds large deposits of gold, silver and iron on and near several of their smaller islands. This newfound material wealth is used to pay off a large part of their debt to the European Union, finally silencing most of the groups that wanted to throw them out.
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2027 CE
Norway, Iceland, Ukraine and the Vatican all join the European Union during this year.
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2028 CE
A small settlement is formed on the moon, which is now officially designated as 'Luna', governed directly by the UN department of Extra-Planetary affairs. It will quickly grow, while prototype solar powered artificial gravity machines heighten the gravity to near Earth Level gravity, with large underground agricultural complexes providing food. By the end of the first year of its existence, close to 9000 people from countries all around the world live there.
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2030 CE
Great Britain joins the EU once again, however this time around the country will have stricter guide lines and a new agreement is formed that in case the country wants to leave the EU again they will need strong majority vote in parliament or a two thirds majority vote in a referendum, instead of the government being forced to go along with what was little more than an opinion poll among the population and treat it like an actual vote.
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2031 CE
Turkey joins the EU.
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2032 CE
The USA gives a demonstration of their new fully tested weapon: a move-able rail gun which functions as the main gun of a new class of battlecruiser. It becomes highly sought after by all countries that don't have a friendly relationship with the EU and gives a much needed boost to the countries economy after an economic crisis that kept worsening for close to 25 years.
2033 CE
Upon realising that even with all the funds put into it space colonisation will not advance fast enough to prevent an international famine caused by the growth rate of the human population in time, it is decided by the EU to collectively start a project of terraforming deserts worldwide into actually useful land.
While this is going on, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Ireland also start another project the Dutch have had a large amount of experience with for the past millennium: gaining land from the sea through poldering.
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2034 CE
China discovers a way to produce plasma based weaponry, which while less powerful and slower than both railguns and laser weaponry, it has 1 massive advantage: Its extremely cheap to make and doesn't need much in the way of cooling systems, unlike laser weapons, and doesn't need anywhere near as expensive ammunition or maintenance as the Railgun weapons do.
Also unlike both laser and railgun technology, it can be made small enough to be reliably used by non-mechanised infantry, though at this point it looses most of its advantages in comparison to gunpowder based fire-arms since the guns small enough to be used by infantry have a rate of fire only slightly higher then muskets. Meaning that while good as anti-vehicle weapons, they fare terribly in infantry against infantry battles.
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2035 CE
After the initial success of the International settlement on Luna (now called 'New Hope'), new settlements are started by individual nations, though the EU through their space agency ESA decides to also form some shared ones under ESA control. Small scale conflict sometimes exists between these settlements, causing the UN department of Extra-Planetary affairs to get a large raise in funding to handle the diplomacy between the different settlements and regions.
By the end of this year, there are roughly 8.9 billion humans, with 1.6 million of those living on Luna and everyone else on Earth. Plans are drawn up for both the permanent settlement of Mars and the terraforming of areas of the Red Planet.
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1st of June 2036
After months of negotiating, with the EU assisting and working as a diplomat to soothe out differences, the African Union is reborn, though this time much more stable. Its founding members are Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Egypt, Libya, Madagascar and South-Africa.
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15th of June 2036
After being approached by the EU about the possibility of terraforming parts of the Sahara desert into farmable lands, the newly born African Union polls their populations about the idea, and with an overwhelmingly positive response they accept the proposal, agreeing to make it a shared investment.
The end result of the negotiations after this is as follows, the African Union pays the local labour forces and other work crews, the European Union will pay the actual specialists and supply the equipment for not only the terraforming, but also all agricultural efforts in the region for 5 years after the conclusion of the project.
All profits will be for the African Union, however in return they will become an ally of the European Union politically, sign a mutual defence pact and curtail illegal immigration towards European countries as much as they can, in the long term also accepting those who migrate back to the African Union from Europe.
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30th of June 2036
The actual project starts, currently named 'Desert Paradise', it is expected to take between 15 and 20 years to fully realize it. After this period of time however, and with the promised farming techniques and equipment the European Union will bring in, the area is expected to be able to feed a 350% larger population then it currently has, which is saying something considering that the regions current population has to import close to half of their food and other agricultural products.
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1st of December 2036 CE
After many failed attempts, the research into creating a true A.I. bears fruit, with the Japanese A.I. gaining sentience. The A.I., that doesn't show a preference to any gender yet at this point, has many discussions with the researchers, but is currently restricted to living in a single room, with no access to the internet or any technology other then its own body, which is rooted to the ground in-case it decides to fight its creators for one reason or the other.
While all these precautions are taken, the AI is treated well by the scientists, who subconsciously have begun to see it as their 'child', while the AI sees them as its family. This type of A.I. will later be known as a 'Synthetic Smart A.I.'.
1st of June 2037 CE
International scouting missions on Mars have shown a multitude of secluded and relatively easy to terraform spots, which has the UN call all countries worldwide together and gives each country the chance to choose spots, with the sizes of the claims being determined by a mix of how much the country of origin needs it, how capable they would be of actually reaching the spot and how well they would be able to make use of it. This event will later be considered the start of the Era of Colonisation.
To prepare for possible problems caused by the predicted expansion into space, a vote is held to give the UN department of Extra-Planetary affairs permission and some funds to build/buy a small navy of space capable combat vessels, and hire both the crews for those vessels and the ground forces to take on planet-based problems on planets other then Earth.
In the same convention, somehow renaming the planet Earth into something else comes up, as something that in the same language used for the word translates to 'dirt' might not be the best idea when potentially interacting with another species, and it is agreed that names can be sent in for the next year by every country that is a UN member state, with a vote being held 6 months after the suggestions are all in.
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1st of December 2037 CE
Countries from all over the world have offered designs for combat capable space vehicles for the UN department of Extra-Planetary affairs, but four design series show the most promise, the Defender Series sent in by the EU collectively through their shared space agency ESA, the Xing Series designs sent in by the Chinese government, the Kalvari Series from India and the Armstrong Series from the USA.
They are seen as useful for very different reasons, the EU designs are seen as such due to them having the best engines, the highest quality laser weaponry and somewhat better armour than most of the others. However the problem is, they are also very expensive to build in comparison to most other designs, especially the Chinese ones.
The Chinese designs meanwhile have the highest level of cost-effectiveness and can transport much larger numbers of people and goods during missions then any of the others, while the Indian ships have the best armour however both are highly underpowered on the weapons front due to using plasma based main guns, while their engines are much less energy efficient then both the European and American designs.
Lastly while the Armstrong series are the most powerful offensively they are for the most part glass canons and can relatively easily be taken down if the opponent knows the design well enough because of the armour being inefficient against laser weapons and a design flaw in the power delivery system that causes the engines to not be able to be used while firing the main gun.
They are however the only design that effectively uses railguns as their main weapons, which causes them to have another offensive advantage against the other designs since most were built along the idea that railguns and other such weapons would be at best the secondary weapons of any ship, causing their armour to be geared towards defending against the effects of laser and plasma weaponry due to the extremely high speed and power of the first and the low production and maintenance costs of the second.
Eventually its decided to go with the Defender Series designs for the majority of the actual warships, the remainder being the Armstrong series, while they will go with the Xing Series designs for troop transports, passenger ships and bulk goods transports. Scouting and exploration vessels will be divided between the Defender and the Xing series.
During this discussion, the possibility of a hostile first contact comes up as an eventuality they have to prepare for, and that while the creation of more mobile defences such as ships should be restricted, the use of orbital defence platforms to defend both the home-world and all future human colonies is taken into consideration. It is agreed upon to return to this subject once the first actual ships have finished production, to give both the side for the idea and the side against the idea good arguments and an idea about the actual economic practicality of the devices.
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1st of May 2038 CE
All suggestions for the planetary name change have been sent in and have been noted down. During this year Japan has decided to open up to the world about their creation of an A.I., and after some discussion and international fear it is decided to let the A.I. talk to the UN in person, however it will be restricted to a robot that has a very large storage capacity so that the A.I. can be comfortable, but also unknown to said A.I. a kill switch that can be immediately activated the moment it turns hostile, with the robot body also having no real cyberwarfare capabilities.
This meeting will happen a week after the election for the new international name of the planet Earth on official UN documentation and in potential future contact with alien life forms.
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1st of July 2038 CE
To ensure that there is a recent index on which population numbers can be checked to keep vote manipulation through added fake votes of already dead or non-existent citizens as low as possible, the UN sends out inspectors specie wide to ensure the fairness of this index. The total human population of 9225060542, or slightly more than 9,225 billion people. 9,105 Billion of these people live on Earth while 120 million people live spread out over the moon and a number of space stations surrounding both the home-world, its moon and the new orbital shipyard.
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1st of November 2038 CE
While many ideas are brought up and discussed during the meeting, the three ideas that are the most widely supported are the names 'Terra' (Latin for 'The ground we stand upon'), المهد الذي ولدنا منه (Arabic for 'The cradle from which we were born') and 那些為勝利而生的人的家(Chinese for 'Home to those born for victory'). Though all three are regarded positively worldwide for the most part, the Latin and Arabic names are the most likely ones to actually be successful considering that while the thought of a victorious mankind pleases all national leaders, they are diplomatic enough to realize any alien they got into contact with would probably be deeply offended.
Though a few of them do not care much about that, especially the Chinese representatives. Eventually the votes go 46% for Terra, 36% for المهد الذي ولدنا منه (Arabic) and 18% for 那些為勝利而生的人的家 (Chinese). With this the question of what to name the home-world is finished, however the future is still uncertain with the debate between UN delegates and the young AI comping up in the next week.
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8th of November 2038 CE
On this day, the UN holds its meeting with the young synthetic A.I., who by this point has developed her own identity, considering herself female and changing her avatar to resemble a Japanese woman in her late teens. She also treats the scientists that worked on the project of creating her as her family members, calls them her aunts and uncles, with the head of the project being her father figure.
The robot body has been changed to accommodate this relatively recent occurrence, and now has a series of projectors installed that will project the chosen appearance over the metal body. This will most likely also have the positive side effect of making both the general public and the people debating with the A.I. more at ease due to the somewhat familiar looks.
During the meeting, which is televised all across the globe, the A.I. not only all questions peacefully which takes away many of the concerns the U.N. general assembly and the public at large had but also gives a rousing speech, winning over many to the cause of seeing her as an equal to a human.
Shortly after the end of this speech, a vote is held on giving A.I's that are found to be sentient equal treatment to what the local law would give to humans. The law passes by 87% votes for and 13% against, and though the Russian government is part of the faction that votes against they don't use their veto for an unknown reason.
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24th of February 2039 CE
The first human space based warship finishes construction, it is the new Defender series frigate, with 9 more of these, 1 Defender series cruiser, 3 Armstrong series frigates, 8 Xing series freighter class troop transports that will double as passenger transports for new colonies until nation-states have their own ships , 6 Xing series freighter class goods transports, 2 Defender series exploration corvettes and 2 Xing series exploration corvettes in production and scheduled to be finished sometime later that same year.
This event restarts the discussion about Orbital Defence Platforms, or ODP's for short. The idea is approved of, however while nation states are allowed to build and own their personal space based mobile fleets, the stations will always be under the direct command of the UN Office of Extraplanetary Affairs. A design committee is created from several high ranked officers from the UN forces, though this time the contractors and designers are in service the UN personally instead of the member states.
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2nd of March 2039 CE
While the project desert paradise is still a long way from being completed, the terraforming project to create more land where there is currently sea is well on its way towards completion and has given the EU 3% more land, however this land is all capable of supporting crops and with the advanced Dutch farming techniques it will be more efficient than all other similarly sized agricultural production areas worldwide.
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1st of June 2039 CE
The first colonies on Mars are created, with the UN freighters transporting people and goods towards these new colonies, one of the first things done is stabilising the general temperature of Mars so that liquid water can exist on it without either boiling or icing over. After that the locations selected for colonisation get weather regulation devices and other terraforming tools to ensure they will eventually become self-sufficient.
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2040 CE
Nation states start producing their own space navies, during production of the European ships it is decided that they need a new non-pulse based weapon since said pulse laser weaponry has turned out to have a somewhat short range in space before losing a large amount of its power during an actual combat situation the new ships have had against a Xing series frigate that had been captured by pirates.
To counter this flaw project 'Broadside' is started, owing its strange name to a bet between the scientists working on it. The contents of the bet were lost to time however. It is offered to refit the currently in production and already produced Defender designs free of charge once a solution has been found. Seeing as even with this flaw, the ships and their weapons are still heavily superior to all of the others, the UN Office of Extraplanetary Affairs accepts this offer without too much fuss.
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2041 CE
During this year Zimbabwe, Ivory coast and Ethiopia join the African Union while Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia join the European union. The first prototypes for space capable fighter jets are made known to the public, after one of them gets filmed taking out an asteroid heading for the capital of Luna (the moon), New Hope.
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2042 CE
Problems start brewing in both the northern parts of India and the country's extraplanetary colonies, with the friction between various political and social movements increasing severely. This unrest is partially caused by a combination the large scale corruption in the government becoming clearer with the day, which all groups blame one of the other groups for, but also partially by a growing shortage of both food and luxury products in the colonies on Luna and Mars.
These shortages are caused by the government refusing to buy space-ships from other countries even though it is clear their own current fleet cannot handle the amount of goods that need to be transported to the colonies on a monthly basis.
During this same year, the African Union as a whole votes to join NATO through both parliamentary votes in all their nation states and a Union wide forum. The forum gets approval with 80% of the votes for, 20% against. Meanwhile the parliamentary votes all also get voted positive, though in most cases with slightly more difficulty.
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2043 CE
During this year the first designs of the ODP platforms have their first prototypes made. The one actually brought into mainstream production, named the HADES Orbital Defence Platform, has both a spinal railgun that the station is built around intended to be used against large ships such as frigates and cruisers, and 4 second generation pulse lasers systems intended to serve as a defence against both asteroids and smaller ships, such as space capable fighter jets and corvettes.
During this same year, the EUNF is transformed into NATO's overall naval organisation, with a meeting being held by the combined representatives of the EU and the AU to decide what name to give this new overall organisation that will be in command of the sea fleets and the Space Navies of the organisation. After a close vote it is renamed to the Union Fleet Command, or UFC for short.
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2nd of February 2044 CE
The first prototypes of non-pulse laser canons are successfully created and tested by the researchers and mechanics working on the project 'Broadside'. After some more refining, the canons will replace the original main weapons of all current ships over the course of year, and automatically be integrated in the newly created ones.
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5th of March 2044 CE
The current Indian government, to much scorn from both international groups and members of its own population, decides to push back the elections by 6 months, to in their own words 'stabilize the country', however considering that they are the main reason behind the destabilisation in the first place, this is seen through for what it is fairly easily: an attempt to keep in power for as long as possible.
At this point the population of India, colonies included, is 1,4 Billion people.
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5th of June 2044 CE
The previous unrest in India comes to a head during a four-way conflict between members of the SIP (Socialist India Party), members of the NIP(Nationalist India Party), members of the DIP (Democratic India Party) and law enforcement units. Close to a thousand people die during the incident, with thousands more getting injured though it is unclear who instigated the conflict or what the underlying reasons actually were that turned the public debate into a warzone.
Investigations lead nowhere though hundreds of people do get arrested for being found guilty of being 'co-conspirators' by the government, and mainly serve to cause even more anger on all sides, since these were oft just random people the government disliked for one reason or another that had nothing or at most extremely little to do with the event.
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23th of August 2044 CE
After several more incidents raising the death toll up to somewhere between 5000 and 5500 people, and raising the amount of injured to just above 12000, both the SIP and the NIP perform coups in their regions of influence, while both attempt to do the same in the capital, only to lose the effect of surprise shortly after the start of the attempt due to them keeping each-other busy long enough for forces loyal to the government to regroup and take them down harshly, causing the whole affair to devolve into a brutal civil war.
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24th of August 2044 CE
The news of the coups and the battles become known worldwide, and after an emergency UN meeting, 4 protected zones are established. One large protected zone in the uppermost part of the north on the border between China and India, manned by both Chinese and North-Korean troops, though mainly Chinese ones after most of the Korean troops desert to either China, Bangladesh or the United Federation of Oceania less than a month after being stationed there, simply out of desperation for actual food, sleeping bags and ammunition.
(Due to North-Korea's logistical problems the supplies the troops are getting is only actually the bare minimum a force that is a third of the size of the North Korean detachment needs in a warzone. This is even more devastating for them then for a normal army simply because of the fact that most of them were already underfed).
The second zone is set up along the East Coast of the country, being manned by the troops of the United Federation of Oceania, the main contributors for the land forces being Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand while the main naval contributors are Australia and Indonesia. The land forces are under the command of an Indonesia general, while the naval forces are under the command of the Australian admiral Daniel McArthur.
The third zone is setup in the Southernmost part of the country and manned by NATO troops, the main contributors on land being Germany, France and Great Britain, while the main naval contributors are Great Britain and the Netherlands. The land forces are lead by the German general Hanz von Muller, while the Naval forces are the 2nd through 6th UFC fleets supported by support and supply ships of the 8th through 11th UFC support flotilla's. In overall command of these forces is the Dutch admiral Herbert Nollen.
Lastly a task force from the UN as a whole sets up the largest safe zone on the western border of the country, stretching from the North-west border with Afghanistan down to the Sea. Most of its forces are from the USA, Russia and Mexico. The overall command of these forces, both on land and on the sea, is the UN general Johannes Marinus.
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30th of August 2044 CE
When the NATO forces arrive in the zone they are supposed to control, they find that there are a large amount of refugees already there, both political and your everyday civilian, and that they are being defended not by government forces, but by the military arm of the DIP from NIP attacks, who see the many 'classless' people in the region in the same way that the Nazi's in WW2 saw the Jews, as a useful workforce that doesn't deserve to live in freedom, but needs to be enslaved for the betterment of society.
In the past week this has already caused roughly 95000 civilian casualties, with another 20000 soldiers who deserted the regular military to side with the Democrats and militia troops dead while trying to defend both the locals and the refugees, while the previous attacks cost the NIP only some 9000 soldiers.
The main reason behind the DIP losing so many troops in comparison to the NIP is relatively simple, the DIP is low on supplies, has little to no heavy vehicles or artillery and what they do have consists mostly of museum pieces, heavy trucks with guns attached to them, about two dozen helicopters and their pilots that followed the regional air-force commander when he joined the DIP side and maybe three-hundred IFV's from the local military garrison that by and large joined the DIP after their commander sided with them, and they had already lost a hundred of the last group when they were forced to fight tanks or be used as improvised anti-aircraft units.
Their total manpower both regular military and poorly equipped militia's included, is down to slightly more than 70000 men by this point, with more of them being the poorly equipped militia's rather then the better equipped regulars by this point due to lost battles and forced retreats were the regulars often volunteered to fight rear-guard actions.
They see the arrival of the NATO troops as a miracle, since they believed they would all die in the next determined NIP attack on their defensive line. Arrayed against them in the next attack wave will be according to what intel they managed to gather somewhere around 220000 soldiers, with a thousand or so tanks, more than 5500 IFV's, an air-force most likely quadruple the size of the DIP's own and hundreds of other vehicles including artillery, anti-tank units and anti-air units.
After this is reported back to NATO high command, both the EU and AU leaders are enraged and decide to send a second force to support the first, consisting of nearly all of the remaining Belgian, French, British, Dutch and German mechanised divisions, artillery units, anti-air units, helicopter squadrons and tank divisions, a large number of Polish, Finnish, Spanish, Italian, South African, Algerian, Moroccan, Egyptian and Turkish infantry divisions, all still active paratrooper divisions available, the 7th and 8th UFC fleets, orbital coverage from the 1st UFC space fleet and last but not least all SAS, Foreign Legion and Green Barret units that can be spared without endangering their home countries.
All units not sent are put into full awareness and preparations are made to be able to turn the economy to wartime settings if needed, while multiple reservist forces are called upon and plans are made to join the civil war on the side of the Democrats if they decide to actively partake in it instead of holding a defensive stance only.
After what happened due to inaction in the second world war, the Balkan conflicts and the Rwandan massacre and the early parts of the Syrian civil war, they are not willing to get caught off guard due to violent responses again. The main idea is 'If these people only seem to want to make the world burn and only understand violence, then let them feel our wrath, and see if they are still willing or even able to fight afterwards'.
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2nd of September 2044 CE
A new offensive by the NIP shatters on the defending forces of the NATO, while the DIP and militia troops are stationed out of the combat areas to form a second line of defence instead in case the first line fails and to prevent large scale flanking attempts from being successful. NIP air coverage is lost in the opening hour of the attack due to them underestimating the NATO anti-air and air-force capabilities.
With NATO armoured and mechanised units absolutely destroying their NIP counterparts even in situations where the former are heavily outnumbered, with NATO air-forces taking out NIP artillery and anti-tank units while also giving information about both NIP anti-air units and NIP reserve infantry positions. Both are targeted by artillery fire.
This forces these to move forward under heavy artillery fire where the diminished infantry units get into battles with their NATO counterparts in urban warfare, and though the NIP still outnumbers the NATO forces at this point due to their 2 to 1 numerical advantage at the start of the battle, this advantage doesn't matter much since they lose between 12 and 15 of their own for every single NATO casualty.
Halfway through the third hour of the offensive NIP troops start surrendering an masse and by the start of the fourth hour 95% of all NIP troops are either dead, captured or retreating, with most falling in the first two categories. The last remaining enemies are flushed out over the next half an hour, while surrendering NIP troops are carted off to hastily erected prison camps and wounded from both sides are brought to medical facilities.
NATO air forces chase the retreating army, however due to a brave rear-guard action from the remaining NIP vehicles and anti-air pieces, they are slowed down for a span of the next 4 hours, though all NIP rear-guard forces are destroyed by the end of this period of time.
They were however successful and by the time the NATO air-force managed to finally take them out and pursue the infantry, the infantry had gotten far enough that most NATO helicopters had to refuel and while they were doing this the NIP infantry had managed to enter territory with an unknown number of enemy anti-air defences, causing further pursuit by the NATO air-force to be put to a halt.
Losses
NIP: 980 tanks, 5200 IFV's, 350 artillery pieces, 120 anti-air units, 200 anti-tank units, 25 fighter jets, 80 helicopters, 151000 soldiers dead, 43000 soldiers captured by the enemy, 29000 soldiers with various degrees of injury that did manage to retreat back to NIP held ground. 20 damaged tanks and 400 damaged IFV's were captured by the enemy.
No more than 15 damaged tanks, 170 damaged IFV's and 25 damaged anti-air units managed to retreat. These remaining vehicles were destroyed by NATO forces while trying to fight a rear-guard action to defend the retreating forces from pursuing NATO fighter jets and helicopters.
NATO: 65 tanks, 350 IFV's, 0 artillery pieces, 3 fighter jets, 0 anti-air units, 35 anti-tank units and 25 helicopters destroyed, 5800 soldiers dead, no soldiers captured by the enemy, 5000 soldiers with various degree of injury, a large number of whom will be combat effective again within a month with basic medical care. Another 40 tanks suffered major damages, 150 tanks suffered light damages, 110 IFV's suffered heavy damage and another 400 IFV's light damages. Of these vehicles 120 tanks and 350 IFV's would be combat ready again within the week.
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3rd of September 2044 CE
Countries worldwide start getting news about the combat between the NATO and the NIP, with the overall reaction being shock. NATO had just not only proven that they weren't going to stay silent in this war, they had shown the world just what they were capable of if angered sufficiently enough.
Then people saw the casualty reports and became even more shocked. The NIP had somewhat lower quality equipment and training yes, but a number of them still had Indian Military training, and having seized many government supply depots, which oft had modern tanks, helicopters and jets all armed with plasma and railgun gear. Meanwhile their infantry divisions were less well armed and armoured, but a most of them still had plasma anti-armour weapons and the regular weapons taken from army supply depots around the country.
The plasma anti-armour weapons proved to be just about useless against the actual main battle tanks of the NATO, though they did a good amount of damage when used against enemy IFV's. The infantry meanwhile got slaughtered in any situation where they didn't have a significant numerical advantage over their NATO opponents.
Meanwhile the NATO tank laser canons, both Pulse and the newer 'broadside' canon versions, absolutely wrecked the NIP vehicles, oft killing them in two or at most three hits, while NATO fighter jets danced around NIP targeting systems for anti-aircraft units with such easy it seemed as if they weren't even trying. NATO IFV's machine guns absolutely destroyed both their counterparts and enemy infantry, even allowing them to fight NIP tanks on near equal terms on the few occasions NATO didn't have their own tanks in the area to counter them.
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4th of September 2044
The DIP starts up its own government, the Indian Republic, with parliamentary elections being held the next month in any region under their control. They style themselves after the multi-party democratic systems common in Europe, the NATO will supply training to the new nations military, while it's member states are now also sending hundreds of cargo freighters filled with humanitarian supplies, weapons and building materials to the region to assist in supporting the new nation.
Their military is already in a much better state then before, with the militia's now finally having equal level gear to the NIP's forces, and also a number of IFV's and tanks that were captured during the battle against NIP. The supplies from NATO also ensure they have enough food and medical supplies for both themselves and the civilians they protect.
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5th of September 2044
North Korea decries the NATO intervention in the conflict, no other countries do so openly for varying reasons, some agree with the NATO actions, some feel that the public outcry against themselves would be more trouble then its worth, some decide that this gives them the perfect reasoning to start interfering in the civil war themselves.
Meanwhile the EU and AU member states collectively begin the transformation of their economies to wartime economies, hoping to prevent making the same mistake leaders in the first world war made of thinking their troops would be home within 3 months even though they were fighting enemies roughly their equal on some fronts.
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7th of September 2044
The CCP starts supporting the SIP, sending food, ammunition, weapons, vehicles, and some of their own forces to both train and support them. When other countries inquire about this, the reply is simple; ''We are following the NATO example in supporting a government that is in our opinion a preferable option over the current one, that might actually be able to bring stability and peace to the region.''
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8th of September 2044
The new support of the Chinese towards the SIP causes a reaction from some NIP units, which try to attack a Chinese convoy transporting these goods which they are now in desperate need of after forces from both the original government and SIP used the losses sustained by the NIP air-forces and armoured divisions during their attack against the NATO lines to charge forward while always having air force superiority, forcing the NIP to give up the initiative and driving them back further and further.
China's reaction is to declare war on the NIP and commit 240000 of their own soldiers to an offensive campaign against them, quickly taking more land in the name of the SIP, and weakening the NIP even more. By this point, they have turned from the strongest faction in the civil war to the weakest faction in less than three weeks after said civil war officially began.
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10th of September 2044
The more than 600000 strong NATO re-enforcements arrive, making many countries worry about just what the NATO is planning to do. Skirmishes between the Republics military forces and NIP troops happen along the current border, with snipers from both sides attacking small enemy groups, which while not doing much numerically wise it does do a somewhat high amount of damage to morale of troops on both sides. The NIP see this as the prelude to an attack and start retreating their troops back further and set up large scale defensive works.
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12th of September 2044
The Indian Republics best military forces, mostly consistent of former regulars from the Indian national army, supported by NATO mechanised divisions, armour divisions and aircraft squadrons begin a march North to free remaining nearby NIP territory, with in total 30000 Republic soldiers, 40 Republic tanks (most of them captured NIP vehicles), 1600 Republic IFV's (many of them former NATO vehicles and captured enemy vehicles), 18 Republic helicopters, 30000 NATO soldiers with 3230 IFV's, 800 NATO tanks and air support in the form of 30 helicopters and 40 fighter jets.
They destroy and/or capture most of the NIP troops that are blocking their path on the first 60 kilometres of the planned 400 kilometre expansion among the entire line Northward to liberate multiple nearby cities where most of the refugees currently in the Republic fled from.
On this same day, a combined Chinese and SIP attack on an important NIP base close to Delhi gets repelled, even though the combined Socialist forces were 41000 strong, while the defenders had only had 21000 troops.
Even so, the defenders were some of the best that the NIP had, and for every single one of them that went down three or more of the socialist troops would die, with the survivors retreating after a gruelling 4 hour battle.
Losses battle in the South:
NATO and Republic: 4 tanks, 35 IFV's, 5 helicopters, 0 fighter jets destroyed, 120 soldiers dead, 0 soldiers captured by the enemy, 100 heavily injured soldiers, 300 lightly injured soldiers, 5 tanks with light damages, 12 IFV's with heavy damages, 28 with light damages.
NIP: 4 tanks, 40 IFV's, 2 helicopters, 20 anti-air pieces, 20 anti-tank units, 2000 soldiers, 1500 soldiers captured by the enemy, 200 injured soldiers that managed to retreat with 30 IFV's with light damage.
Losses battle in the North:
CCP and SIP: 60 tanks, 480 IFV's, 6 fighter jets, 30 helicopters and 0 artillery pieces destroyed, 28000 soldiers dead, 200 soldiers captured by the enemy, 2500 soldiers heavily injured and 4000 soldiers lightly injured but both groups managed to retreat back to Socialist held territory. 20 tanks and 40 IFV's heavily damaged but captured by the enemy, 40 tanks,110 IFV's, 25 artillery pieces lightly damaged but managed to retreat to socialist held territory.
NIP: 15 tanks, 40 IFV's, 20 artillery pieces, 40 anti-air units and 140 anti-tank units destroyed, 9500 soldiers dead, 0 captured by the enemy, 4000 heavily injured that wouldn't be able to return to fighting condition for the remainder of the war, 3000 soldiers lightly injured. 3 tanks, 16 IFV's, 20 anti-tank units and 5 anti-air units heavily damaged, 12 IFV's lightly damaged.
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13th of September 2044
After the relatively easy victory for NATO on the first day, the second day grows into something just shy of a nightmare, with them only advancing 10 kilometres before starting to encounter heavily entrenched enemy forces, slowing down the advance and causing them to have to call in air support multiple times.
While this is happening they also meet significant amounts of opposing vehicles for the first time since what is now called the battle of Madurai (the first major battle between NATO and NIP forces). This causes artillery units to be called in and moving a number of them closer to the front then before, since no hard resistance was expected before this day began and thus no artillery support was expected to be needed.
Due to the unexpected amount of resistance, the advance is stopped completely for the next 12 hours at 18 kilometres progress and 2 lines are formed for most of the day, with the stalemate only breaking after the NATO paratroopers drop behind the enemy line and manage to take out most of the enemy anti-air and artillery units, while the artillery manages to take out roughly half the enemy anti-tank gun crews.
A tank charge with mechanised infantry support after this managed to break the enemy defensive line allowing the Republican infantry to sweep in and exploit the gap. After the NIP troops understand defeat is a certainty, they load as many injured as they can into all their remaining IFV's while all remaining non-injured infantry performs a breakout charge against the paratroopers and then stay behind to fight a rear-guard action to let the injured get away unimpeded.
This victory however comes at a heavy cost to the NATO whom suffer their greatest losses till now while the Republic forces suffer an almost complete defeat of both their air-force and their armoured units, while also losing thousands of infantry troops.
These are also the Republics first large scale losses since the NATO troops arrived. Due to these extremely high losses, more artillery re-enforcements and more mechanised infantry are called in for support, as well as more tanks to replace those lost, while all paratroopers not used in this battle start preparing for a combat drop.
On this same day, the first and only major naval engagement between the NIP and the UFC, with the NIP losing in a gruelling 6 hours battle when all still working ships surrender to the UFC 1st and 2nd fleet. Later on it was said that pretty much the only good things that came from this battle for both NATO and the Republic were the bond of respect it created between the soldiers of both sides and the PR victory of two forces united liberating the area from the oppressive rule of the NIP at great cost.
However this battle and the near impossible victory against Chinese assisted SIP troops in near Delhi also gave the NIP something to gather around: They, the only faction made up truly of forces from India only, fighting for India's ideals only and no-one else's, could make these invaders bleed and even beat them, no matter how outmanned or outgunned they were.
A propaganda campaign centred around this idea gave them a large influx of new recruits and gave them the ability to fight on where before this it looked as if they would fall in less than a week.
Meanwhile the original government was being trampled underneath the boots of SIP armies now that these actually had proper gear, making more and more of those that would have joined them originally now join the NIP. Not only that, but due to just how the troops acted in the fight against the Republican and NATO forces, all NIP now have found a grim inspiration: No more surrender, fight to the bitter end, no matter how badly the situation goes.
The loss of nearly their entire navy during the naval battle however took away their ability to resupply by sea in any way shape or form and also drastically weakened their ability to stop amphibious invasions of their territory, forcing them to stay mostly on the defensive even with their influx of new recruits.
Losses land:
Republic and NATO: 160 tanks, 520 IFV's, 0 artillery pieces, 40 helicopters and 5 fighter jets destroyed, 9800 soldiers dead, 0 soldiers captured by the enemy, 4000 soldiers heavily injured, 5000 soldiers lightly injured. 90 tanks heavily damaged, 250 IFV's heavily damaged, 300 tanks lightly damaged, 350 IFV's lightly damaged.
NIP: 180 tanks, 240 IFV's, 100 artillery pieces, 90 anti-air units, 270 anti-tank units and 20 helicopters destroyed, 47500 soldiers dead, 0 soldiers captured by the enemy, 400 heavily injured and 100 lightly injured soldiers but managing to retreat with 54 lightly damaged IFV's.
Losses at sea:
UFC: 1 carrier, 2 cruisers, 5 destroyers, 9 frigates, 30 PT boats, 1 submarine, 20 fighter jets and 20 helicopters destroyed, 1800 sailors dead, 3900 wounded but alive, 0 captured by the enemy. 1 dreadnought lightly damaged, 1 cruiser heavily damaged, 3 destroyers lightly damaged, 7 frigates heavily damaged, 18 frigates lightly damaged, 10 PT boats lightly damaged.
NIP: 1 battlecruiser, 1 dreadnought, 2 carriers, 6 cruisers, 14 destroyers, 34 frigates, 2 submarines, 50 PT boats, 10 fighter jets and 60 helicopters destroyed, 9000 sailors dead, 11000 wounded but captured by the enemy.
2 carriers heavily damaged but captured by the enemy, 3 cruisers heavily damaged but captured by the enemy, 1 cruiser lightly damaged but captured by the enemy, 6 destroyers heavily damaged but captured by the enemy, 4 destroyers lightly damaged but captured by the enemy, 6 frigates lightly damaged but captured by the enemy, 40 PT boats lightly damaged but captured by the enemy, 30 support ships undamaged but captured by the enemy.
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14th of September 2044
India's colonies on both Mars and Luna declare for the Indian Republic after public referendums in each of them. When the now mostly defunct original government of India orders their troops to take the colonies back by force, they refuse and instead oft have their commanders offer the Republic the possibility of them joining the new Republican military.
The Republican military accepts them, happy to have more combat ready forces after their losses the previous day, and withdraws a third of them from the Colonies back to India after several NATO member states(more specifically the Netherlands, Germany and the Vatican) gift them a dozen goods transport freighters and loan them 4 troop transport freighters. Afterwards they replace them with injured soldiers that can patrol a somewhat peaceful colony but are too injured to fight well for longer periods of time in an active warzone.
Once this is done they restart a steady supply line between their territory on Earth and their colony with the newly gained bulk goods transports from NATO, with the Republics military leadership vowing that they will find a way to pay back the NATO member states for all that they have done for them.
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16th of September 2044
After they gain the re-enforcements, have resupplied and devised a new battle strategy, the combined NATO and Republic forces march onward, now a total of 55000 troops strong, as the main force. The Republic provide 12000 troops and 1700 IFV's, with all of the Republics troops being mechanised infantry forces, while the NATO provides the remaining 43000 troops.
Of these troops 30000 are mechanised infantry with 4000 IFV's, 3400 tank crew with 680 tanks, with the remaining 4600 soldiers being spread out over many different branches including the artillery units with 300 artillery pieces, 200 anti-air units with 2 operators each, 140 anti-tank units with 2 operators each, air-force units with 50 helicopters and 38 fighter jets, with all remaining troops being support personnel.
Meanwhile behind them a second force consistent of 12000 Republic troops with all of them being infantry and 8000 NATO personnel, 50 of them being tank crew with 10 tanks, 400 of them being mechanised infantry with 50 IFV's, 150 anti-air units with 2 operators each, 3250 regular infantry units and lastly 4000 NATO employed contractors, medical personnel and truck drivers to not only deliver and distribute supplies to liberated regions but also to repair damages caused by the war.
That day they only meet some enemy scouts and sniper units, with skirmishes having very low casualties on both sides, but slowing the army down somewhat and instead of the projected 140 kilometres they only cross 120 kilometres.
One advantage of the fact that they are now fully mechanised is that all troops can move around much faster than before, though they are somewhat slowed down by the artillery, which while faster than the infantry still isn't the same speed as the IFV's or the tanks.
NATO and Republic: 0 Tanks, 5 IFV's, 0 artillery pieces, 0 anti-air units, 0 anti-tank units, 0 helicopters, and 0 fighter jets destroyed, 50 soldiers dead, 0 soldiers captured by the enemy, 30 lightly injured soldiers that will be combat effective again within a week. 2 IFV's heavily damaged, 5 IFV's lightly damaged.
NIP: 18 IFV's destroyed, 125 soldiers dead, 50 lightly injured soldiers that managed to retreat back to their own territory with 7 lightly damaged IFV's will be combat effective again within a week.
17th of September 2044
On this day, they reach multiple towns and a city with light NIP forces presence, who only seem to be fighting a rear-guard action to try to delay the Republic and NATO advance. The NATO, fearing a trap, does actually slow their troops down somewhat and searches each area for enemies with extreme scrutiny before moving on.
At the end of the day they have liberated an area of 80 kilometres, a significantly smaller amount then what was hoped, but the caution pays off in causing there to be only a handful of deaths, though the number of injuries is in the hundreds.
Losses:
Republic and NATO: 1 tank, 10 IFV's, 0 artillery pieces, 0 anti-air units, 0 anti-tank units, 0 helicopters, and 0 fighter jets destroyed, 85 soldiers dead, 200 soldiers heavily wounded, 250 lightly wounded, 25 IFV's heavily damaged, 6 tanks and 30 IFV's lightly damaged.
NIP: 70 IFV's and 10 anti-tank units destroyed, 940 soldiers dead, 50 soldiers heavily injured but captured by the enemy, 150 soldiers lightly injured but managed to retreat back to friendly territory with 20 lightly damaged IFV's.
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18th of September 2044
Wanting to know just why the enemy is fighting a retreating battle ever since the 13th of September, the NATO forces send the UFC first space flotilla to do orbital scouting of the area. The flotilla relies back grim news to headquarters, the NIP has been preparing large fortifications at the city that was the expeditions final target, with an army of at least 150000 soldiers stationed there, at least a thousand tanks, thousands of IFV's, hundreds of anti-tank and anti-air units and a completely unknown amount of artillery.
There was relatively little in the way of an air-force, which seem to all have relocated to the Northern front to fight the SIP, CCP and old government forces, not only that but they seem to actually have forced the first two of those factions in a stalemate while having the last one on the verge of collapsing since they are now besieging their final known base. Meanwhile large amounts of troops are on the road from the area the NATO and Republic forces have yet to capture, numbering in the tens of thousands.
While the fighter jets are sent forward to bombard large amount of enemy forces in the open, the remaining force begin a quick march North, while re-enforcements are sent in from already liberated areas. They stop for the day after having gained another 80 kilometres and are now 40 kilometres away from the opposing headquarters, while all throughout the day the recon vehicles and helicopters have been in skirmishes with enemy forces.
Meanwhile the fighter jets having decimated a large number of enemy armoured divisions, though at the cost of some losses due to camouflaged enemy anti-air units. After they reach their new line the troops will stay there to resupply and wait for their incoming re-enforcements.
Losses
NATO and Republic: 0 tanks, 25 IFV's, 0 artillery pieces, 0 anti-air units, 0 anti-tank units, 2 helicopters, and 9 fighter jets destroyed, 250 soldiers dead, 100 soldiers heavily wounded, 250 lightly wounded, 15 IFV's heavily damaged and 40 IFV's lightly damaged.
NIP: 165 tanks, 90 IFV's, 25 anti-air pieces, 0 anti-tank units and 0 artillery destroyed, 1500 soldiers dead, 0 soldiers captured by the enemy, 200 heavily injured and 100 lightly injured soldiers but managing to retreat to the city with 50 lightly damaged IFV's.
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21st of September 2044
After gaining re-enforcements, the combined NATO-Republic force is now 165000 soldiers strong, with 45000 of them being Republic soldiers with 1400 Republic IFV's and 50 artillery pieces. Meanwhile the 120000 strong NATO force with 6000 IFV's, 1200 tanks, 400 artillery pieces, 250 anti-air units, 250 anti-tank units, 45 fighter jets, 85 helicopters and hundreds of support vehicles.
More reconnaissance and the use of the first A.I. serving as an intelligence agent gives them a more exact number of enemies: roughly 220000 enemy soldiers, with 300 tanks, 1500 IFV's, 250 artillery pieces, 650 anti-tank units, 250 anti-air units and no enemy aircraft in the centre of the defensive position, the city Bangalore.
Another 210000 soldiers, 500 tanks, 3800 IFV's, 230 artillery pieces, 150 anti-air units and 300 anti-tank units were spread out over the countryside forming a light defensive line, said line spread from Madras on one end to Bangalore in the middle, with Mangalore as the end on the other side. While possibly easy to break through, any attempt to do so would also trap you in one of the killing fields created by the overlapping fields of fire from the large amount of enemy artillery.
The good news: most of the remaining enemy tanks, artillery pieces and anti-tank guns are either older models or damaged pieces, making them less dangerous then the ones used during the battle on the 13th of September.
The bad news is that the NIP has been fortifying the lynchpin of this position ever since the loss of the first battle against the NATO, and the entire city is surrounded by a network of bunkers, trenches, minefields, machine gun nests and any other way that the NIP could find to strengthen the defences.
The actual chance of them taking the city by force with their current numbers against an enemy that outnumbers them without losing at least half of their own troops is considered nihil, and as such high command starts trying to devise a strategy to win without such extraordinarily high losses. In the meantime the artillery on both sides is bombarding the other sides positions whenever they can, while skirmishes occur between snipers of both sides.
Small scale skirmishes also occur between mechanised forces from both sides, however with their superior numbers, vehicles and air support the NATO and Republic forces win most of these with relative ease.
Losses
NATO and Republic: 9 tanks, 80 IFV's, 0 artillery pieces, 0 anti-air unit, 3 anti-tank units, 5 helicopters, and 0 fighter jets destroyed, 350 soldiers dead, 650 soldiers heavily injured, 750 soldiers lightly injured, 15 tanks lightly damaged, 35 IFV's heavily damaged and 70 IFV's lightly damaged.
NIP: 40 tanks, 230 IFV's, 5 anti-air pieces, 8 anti-tank units and 1 artillery piece destroyed, 2400 soldiers dead, 0 soldiers captured by the enemy, 250 lightly injured soldiers but managing to retreat to the city on foot after their IFV's are destroyed. Another 300 soldiers heavily injured and 800 lightly injured due to bombardments on the city.
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22nd of September 2044
NATO high command has devised a new strategy, instead of going straight through, they just use their naval and air superiority to their advantage by landing a large amphibious assault 70 kilometres behind enemy lines, to surround enemy forces, cut off their supply line and draw away troops from the main front to weaken their defences even more.
For this operation they gather the second, third and fourth UFC fleets and quickly turn a large number of captured NIP ships into troop transports. They also prepare a number of paratroopers for a combat drop done from the carriers.
While NATO sends 150000 troops to do this and keeps the remainder of their army back on the defensive, the Republic meanwhile sends all the re-enforcements they can up North to strengthen the main army, in this case 20000 more soldiers, mainly infantry with 200 repaired IFV's that were damaged in previous battles added in.
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Ok first things first for those who think I'm focusing too much on specific countries, this is partially because of the fact of how I wrote the first few chapters of this story. I now need to realistically make humanity stronger then canon ME humanity. (Which is actually extremely easy to do, it would literally be harder to realistically try to create a version of humanity close to or below ME capabilities. As in close to impossible unless I have them suffer either a MAD scenario level nuclear war or a global synthetic rebellion that makes them fear technology so much they will revert to a pre-industrial society.)
But somehow still weak enough that they won't be able to just say 'fuck it' and decide to just rampage their way through Citadel space untill they hold both the Council and Palaven hostage, then forcing the Council to have humanity as the fourth council race from that moment on (a lot harder, after some research it turns out most ME weapons are only about as good as modern firearms only with the ability to carry around a much larger amount of ammo. Throw 140 years of developement on those weapons and in a realistic battle where humanity has both advanced and found the Prothean base on Mars... yeah its going to be like watching an army with German ww1 gear that has a competent commander try to fight the modern German army that also has a competent commander... good luck Citadel Council, it was nice knowing you, welcome new overlords of the Galaxy, humanity.)
However one of the other problems I wrote myself into is that I somehow realistically need to make China, the USA and the European Union the main powers. While making those three the main powers isn't too much of a problem since they well actually currently are the worlds main superpowers… the problem is more that I somehow need to create a version in which India isn't added to that list for one reason or the other. This means that I needed to write a scenario in which option A: India experienced either mass emigration of close to 50% of their population, option B: had little power to no power in space and would only be powerful on Earth itself or option C: were it is torn in two by a massive civil war the effects of which continue untill shortly before, during or even after the first contact war.
The third problem that I wrote myself into is that somehow an equal sized Turian flotilla with an incompetent commander was able to still fight on equal ground against a human flotilla that did have a competent commander, even though humanity would realistically have so much better armour and offensive weaponry that no matter the Turian advantage in shields we would still be able to fight them on equal foot with extreme ease, especially since all human ships would have secondary weaponry that would just bypass enemy shields and rip them to shreds if it ever came into knife fighting range.
Then we come to the fourth problem: just how the Turian ground invasion is ever going to work at all since the humans should have ground-based laser anti-ship weapons that can cut frigates in half in seconds, which is especially dangerous considering the council races in Mass Effect cannot bring anything larger then a frigate into the atmosphere of most planets without it heavily damaging the ship.
Then we come to the fifth problem: just how am I going to convince people that Belgium, Great Britain and the Netherlands can actually stand a chance in a cold war against half the world, even if they have the secret support of European Union, African Union and Oceanic Union members if the war turns hot?
Ok admittedly that last one is relatively simple, even on their current course they actually can. With how Trump is crashing the US economy (the biggest in the world currently) and how the Dutch have been using their high level of technological advance in the agricultural and terraforming sector, they will probably take over the USA's leadership spot on the food export list.
The Dutch are currently the second largest exporter of food and seventh largest agricultural giant world-wide. Considering the US is currently the first largest exporter and Trump fucked up pretty much everything that could be fucked up in this fiction, who do you think will make the most money in a world that's getting overcrowded and is heading towards a giant famine, and who will be hired to terraform area's on other planets?
You guessed it the Dutch, especially since they also have the full support of 80% of the world's top economies behind them (with how 16 of the 20 largest economies world-wide currently are part of the EU, with Great-Britain and the Netherlands also as part of that list) and have literally been terraforming land to actually enable themselves to farm crops for close to a millennium (look up the term 'Dutch Poldering' if you do not believe me).
This together with the fact that the Dutch and British have always been among the world's best overall sailors, explorers, naval combatants and merchants, its actually not that unrealistic if the USA doesn't pull its head out of its own ass fast enough and India falls into a large scale civil war like in this story then becomes divided between different groups due to the effects of said civil war.
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China might be a major power but 90% of their equipment has extreme quality control issues, which in space means that outside of cost-effectiveness they really have no way to compete with anyone else since anyone with even the slightest bit of care for either their public image or the survival of their employees will go for safer products from other countries that don't have a chance of breaking down at a moment were such a failure would have lethal consequences.
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Space isn't a place where if something fails people grumble a bit, complain to the person they bought it from then buy a new one. Space is the place where if anything fails you're dead in minutes at best, seconds at worst. This causes themselves and North Korea to be the only governments likely to use their ships unless they discover something that makes up for literally all quality control issues, which in the story is Mass Effect.
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I solve the third problem thusly: the human ships would for the most part have been Chinese ships, which rely on their shields much more then anyone else and whom also try to stay away from the opponent as far as possible because they are trained with the idea of facing an opponent like the Dutch, Belgian or British ships, which can wreck them in less then 2 hits if they actually manage to get in close. Because of this the commanding officer tried to use standard mass effect strategy: stay away, and have what is essentially a space born sniper/artillery duel.
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This would then play right into the hands of the Turians, who are way more experienced then the Chinese with countering such a style of fighting, and also takes advantage of their better shielding. However, because the Chinese ships have both better armour and are lead by an actually competent commander who will thus also use things like FTL repositioning, they were still heading to mutual destruction untill desolas shows up.
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Fourth problem is also countered relatively easily, Shanxi was a relatively new colony, causing it to only have one well defended city, the capital and even then not everything that is normally on a world was there yet (Anti-orbital canons, ODP stations, etc.) because the only real danger that they could know about would come through the already explored and activated mass relay as far as they knew, meaning that a small defence fleet should be enough to deal with them.
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Also if anybody is annoyed with me about the size of the India Civil war part, while it isn't even finished, my main thing is this: that conflict will essentially be the thing that determines how the world is shaped until the discovery of Mass Effect, will also be the first large scale war humanity has while it already has extraplanetary colonies and a small but capable fleet in space.
Lastly also the thing that will show the world the power of an unbroken NATO without the USA in it and as I already told earlier I needed a big conflict that broke a world power to make the whole premise of this story work while not making the conflict drastic enough that Humanity will by flying UNSC level ships by the time the first contact war starts.