Extract from: X-Com: The Blood of Martyrs by Nathan Fitzwilliam (2048)(Oxford University Press)
...the Unification movement had begun to gain momentum by late 2021 with full reform of the existent but largely defunct United Nations and wartime Council of Nations into the United Earth government as the immediate pressures of alien attack seemed to have stopped for the moment and the globe could begin more than localised rebuilding and relief efforts. The success of the Council mandated X-Com project, and the continued need for development of effective defence measures should the alien threat re-emerge had rallied a great deal of support from the global populace for singular global governmental organisation that would help the stabilise the fractured global economy and provide a more coherent defence in the future; it was very much promoted by the supporters of globalisation, and those few true federalists among them, of the effectiveness of the strongly Internationalist X-Com forces against the invaders opposite that of even the most powerful pre-war national militaries which fought brave, often heroic, battles against the aliens but did so isolation to each other allowing them to be divided and destroyed by the invaders.
Indeed the problems of the Middle East and the rise of the short lived Caliphate are a good indicator of this division as each nation focused on defend its own national borders exclusively at the expense of the others saw the rapid collapse of several regional powers such as Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia with Egypt only been saved by the almost last minute co-operation between the Egyptian military and the Israel Defence forces and even this decision would radically destabilise Egypt in the immediate aftermath of the war as anti-Zionist factions raged at this "betrayal" and wished to ally with the Caliphate against the "Western Imperialists". Indeed it is surprising how little major resistance there was to some form of unification, though the level of national sovereignty was fiercely debated, with all the major pre-war great powers and superpowers lined up in support of the formalisation of their alliance even if the strongest of these had taken a severe reduction in capacity in the short term. In fact outside the Korean Intervention and the reduction of several post-war "warlords" that arose in the post war chaos in the region's worst affected by the invaders the only true large scale resistance to the process was from the Caliphate which was heavily influenced by a mixture of radical Islam, delusions of power and the bitterness and fear of the surviving middle eastern remnant, and backers, of Exalt who saw no place for themselves within the new United Earth.
Too understand the rise of the Caliphate one has to understand that as the various middle eastern states fell into chaos one of the few forces to mount an effective defence against the Aliens were a series of initially loosely affiliated Sunni militias and terrorist organisations, who while poorly equipped in pre-war terms were as equally equipped versus the invaders as were the in situ national militaries and gifted one factor these forces largely were not; they were fanatical, aggressive and quite willing to die as long as the "space demons" were driven off. Quite frankly for most people within the chaotic region, such as in Iraq and the Saudi Arabian peninsula the rational choice to ensure survival from death at alien hands, or worse abduction of themselves and their families, when the national militaries crumbled in the first few weeks of the conflict. With what we know now the Caliphate and its Exalt allies in the region achieved a surprising degree of success for a national force with the weaponry available to it, managing to shoot down at great cost (two entire squadrons of Mig fighter jets were lost and fragmentary evidence indicates the vessel was brought down by ramming) an alien supply vessel and the capture of a large alien scout, mostly intact, sometime in 2017 in eastern Syria without the knowledge of other local powers or of X-Com whose satellite network was verging on collapse in the region at the time.
Of course this was to prove to be the eventual undoing of the Caliphate in 2023 which due to its general aggression versus UEG members Turkey, Israel and Iran and control over a significant part of at the time necessary petrochemical materials had already alienated the new UEG organisation and with the discovery by X-Com of the Exalt presence and alien tech a strike action was authorised to take down these forces and as such the Alpha and Beta squads of X-Com were mobilised under the command of Colonel Midori Kobayashi, a hero of Temple ship fame, who would led Operation Red Achilles later that year that would recover these alien artefacts and destroy the control centre of most of the Caliphates operations, and Exaltd remaining personnel, as the various United Earth contingents crossed the border at...
Extract from: From the Ashes: A History of United Earth 2019 - 2099 by Kenneth Kipkemoi II (2114)(Ares University) (Mars Colony)
...so this saw the great post war population booms, first in the early 2020's as the world began to stabilise after the Ethereal War and then again in the 2030's as gene mods became available in increasing numbers to the population at large, especially with decision in 2038 for all future colonists to the Asteroid Mining Belt to receive free augmentation or psionic training along with tax exemption for their service term provided they signed on for a eight year service term with the three largest solar mining corporations (Stellar Mining, Firestone Solar and Exaaro Industries) at the behest, and subsidy, of the X-Com and United Earth Government (UEG) which saw the expansion of the solar mining and shipbuilding industries as vital for a mixture of defence concerns and also the difficulties been experienced on Earth by resource exhaustion and the surging population was causing a fall in living standards as unemployment soared in the later 30's and early 40's.
Much of this was blamed on the major spending of the late 2020's and early 2030's as the United Earth Space Command (UESC) came into being and nearly two dozen Dreadnought class vessels and seven Chimera class warships entered service with X-Com, not to mention the large number of military and civilian transports and armed auxiliaries craft that were built and funded by the UEG and UESC in this period; with the failure of the Alien threat to reappear by the mid thirties the borrowing incurred by the UEG to fund these operations found itself no longer sustainable with public and the global economy entered the so-called Shipbuilders Recession in 2037.
This period would also see the first real growth of Ares colony, now Ares City, from a X-Com military outpost to fully functional civilian run mining colony as even without the incentives of the Asteroid belt stations Mars presented a opportunity for new life to many of the poorer strata of society especially as the capacity to use and deploy prefabricated bio domes and living units by this period helped to dramatically reduce the cost of colony deployment for those corporations and consortiums that lacked favourable associations with any of the various organs of the UEG to gain mineral rights in the Belt. The greatest difficulty encountered during this period was of course in relation to feeding the colonies but in many ways this a difficulty as acute on the poorer regions of Earth itself as the effects of environmental degradation were felt leading to a fall in agricultural production even as the population within the solar system continued to grow which would lead to several near famines in the early 2040s in parts of Africa that had not till that point joined the UEG, and even in parts of UEG aided Asia where in spite of the implementation of a rationing system in affected areas severe hundred occurred.
It was only with the creation of genetically modified foodstuffs that could be produced in the orbital's and within specially created and soil enhanced bio domes on Mars that the crisis had begun to end by the late 2040's and early 2050's and the conjuncture of these crises, economic, demographic and agricultural are largely at the heart of the significant reduction in military spending between the Shipbuilders Recession and Second Contact as increased pressure from disaffected voters and national governments within the UEG demanded, and received, increased social spending to help reduce tensions and address the environmental degradation.
This public mood is very much reflected in then upcoming Optimal Terra politician Philip Green's statement in 2041 "that there is no use spending all our money on ships to fight aliens, that we have not seen in two decades, that may kill hundreds of thousands if we've destroyed our world's ecosystem and by so doing allowed millions to starve to death in the mean time. That would not be optimal". With these increased pressures it its unsurprising that the uptake of gene augmentation and psionics even on those who remained on Earth would occur through this period as the increased health and abilities of the augmented versus the non augmented often saw preferential selection for employment and significantly reduced rates for other costs such as insurance coverage and medical bills, by 2044 its estimated an gene augmentation would increase chances of employment by almost 30% in most nations and an amazing 60% in nations such as the United States, Japan and Australia which saw strong support for the Optimal Terra party platform of genetic improvement, colonisation to relieve population pressure and environmental redevelopment.
To a degree this was the first time since the advent of the Ethereal War that support for reducing the funding for X-Com and the UESC have ever received enough support to be successful and even then much of the military funding would be redeployed into research and development rather than frontline combat units throughout that and the following decade as it was felt unlocking the secrets of the Wormhole Drive and Elerium were much more worthwhile goals than increasing the number of warships, and to a degree this was successful in 2047 with the first successful implementation of a copy of the drive system on UES Enterprise by the UES Odyssey to reach Jupiter in a single jump...
23rd July 2056
Corporate Suite, Phoenix Hotel
New Mombasa, Pan-African Union
The journey from the transport hub had been pleasent enough after the fight from Montana, though the city had that awful blocky and sterile appearance that you encountered in post-war reconstructed cities, everything neat, organised and prefabricated he mused to to himself as gazed at the passing sidewalks from the passenger section of the rental groundcar.
"Are you listening to me, Z?" his driver was demanding "were minutes away from a life changing meeting and our sittin' here daydreamin'"
"Don't worry Lil I've my mind fully in the game here" he answered back at his stressed looking co-director "everythings good so far, they wouln't be rolling out the big guns like this if they weren't serious about it". She muttered something under breathe about fools and there gold, turning off Roy Orbinsons voice on their pads, as they pulled into the hotel parking. A fine building actually he noticed, nothing like the dullness of the rest of the city, with that neo-Victorian design that become popular in the late 2020's among the world wealthier citizens.
A short dark skinned man waved them over as they entered the hotel's reception "Zefram, Miss Sloane welcome to New Mombasa, I hope you found the journey to your liking"
"All's well Pierre, bit of a delay at the Hub though something about a disturbance in the city"
Pierre grimaced "Hmmm, I suspected as much" he said as he escorted them towards the corporate suite "theirs still rationing going on in the poorer quarters, one of the larger ones which is near the Hub, saw some violence when law enforcement arrived to guard the distrubution centre"
"Anything we should be worried about?" Lily asked from behind them "I thought most of that had died down last year"
"Don't worry it has" Pierre said giving her an attempt at a charming smile "things have gotten better thats why this is causing delays, its nothing like years ago I heard and this was due to some sort of accident, I think a shipment crashed and stupidity happened with the locals. Ah" he indicated a large oak panelled door "here we are", opening it and indicating for them to enter.
Two men and an older woman who sat at the round table dressed in business suits, save for one of the men dressed in a expensive looking set of local clothing, called a a...hmmmm... kando...kanzu?, well what ever he though it certainly looked pricy. "Mr. Cochrane, Miss Sloane I'd like to introduce to my superior Edward William Frederick Kimera Mutebi III, Minster for Industry and Enterprise of the Pan-African Union and Kabaka of Buganda" indicating a young man who greeted them with winning smile and whose handshake to both of them was very enthuastic, he motion to a older woman seated to the left of the Minister "Mrs. Sarima Okonkwa, CEO of Chronowerx Industries and last but not least Mr. Yuoto Tasaki of Tasaki-Mitsuba Aerospace"
"Please have a seat Mr. Cochrane, Miss Sloane" the Minister indicated as Pierre took his own seat beside the three "it's nice to finally meet both of you in person having seen the opportunities of your proposals and the fact of the ambitions of one so young, a cortex implant at 17 even!" Zefram hid the grimace behind a nod as Mutebi spoke approvingly, everyone assumed the expensive augment was due to academic ambition but rather it had been a diagnois of a bi-polar defect that had caused his family to borrow heavily for it "and for both of you to develop such theory in your twenties, well, a bright future lies ahead of you!"
The stern faced Mrs. Okonkwa nodded "And you handled the rejection of the X-Com afflicates very well, many would have just stopped in there tracks at that" Zefram nearly jumped at that, Okonkwa showed a tiny smile "of course its obvious Mr. Cochrane, you've got a patent on the design and that prototype with a certification thats its free of any alien materials, which means you indicates you went to Duisbergs lackeys or one of the Big Three and the lack of alien tech was an automatic rejection. If Vahlen was still in charge you'd have been snapped up but Dusiberg's a different breed and if it isn't alien tech its not worth studying" yes that was that arrogant buffon's view Zefram though, the niced thing he said of his proposed drive system was that it was "a waste of resouces" as Okonkwa continued "of course thats why its so appealling to our little consortium"
"How so? I would have expected a rejection from X-Com to hurt our proposals. Its why we provided so much mathatheical backing and test data when we approached Mr. Dubois here a year ago"
"Oh Mr. Cochrane your business education must be seen too when we start this project" Okonkwa stated "we here are very much on the outside of X-Coms and the UNSC's little patronage system" both Tasaki, Pierre and the Minister nodded in conformation "in relation to usage of "essential state assets and research" and X-Com is very zealous in preseving is monoploy of Ethereal technology. They seize any "illegal reserach" and only allow certified research through their little pets, or the Councils ones...well a project like yours thats secured patent rights and full cerfication of independent research will make us all, not some Dusiberg lackey, very wealthy when and if it succeeds"
Tasaki finally spoke "Yes and this project holds the prospect of completely changing the status quo in the way of the automobile, internet or Ethereal tech. The use of the wormhole drive three years ago to reach Alpha Centuri and the dicovery of small qauntities of inert Elerium there is giving the larger mining and transtellar companies a great advantage owing to the necessity of patrongage combined with the energy requrements of the drives. Having been the primary tester of your findings all indications are that while the propsed "Cochrane Drive" is much slower it also has massively reduced enery requirements and would rapidly make FTL available on a large scale"
He looked at Zefram "and its a well tested theory you've managed to expand upon, dating back pre-War"
Zefram nodded "Yes there was some research pre-War into the concept by Miguel Alcubierre and experiments by the US agency NASA but that all vanished after the Invasion. So myself and Lily have spent the past five years constructing the formula and testing our laboratory prototype tests"
"Now unto brass tax" the Minister annouced jovially "Mr. Tasaki and my own department have confirmed your findings, at least in theory, and all of us have agreed to support the project and its asociated costs. In fact our primary interest is to scale up the project"
"Scale it up?" Lily inquired surprised
"Yes, your original proposals call for a fairly modest test utilising a modified version of planetary defence ICBM or retrofitted shuttle launched from an expanded version of your Montana workshop. That is not acceptable I'm afraid"
"May I ask why?" Lily asked looking confused
"Yes, my government are quite willing to supply faciities and support for the project, the US government and UEG were not wiling to supply you I might add, here in East Africa but we would require a firm committement that upon the successful development of this "Warp Drive system" that the research centre be based here in the PAN" the smile faded from the Ministers face somewhat "as much as pains me the PAN has lesser influence within the UEG than would be desired and a share of the royalties from such a system and creation of employment here is very important for government to support this consortium"
Okonkwa interjected as he finished "Yes a true working model, plus a public display of its success would be essential to promote adoption of the new system and quite frankly that would be available or acheivable within the North American or European contintents which are focused too heavily on Ethereal based design and manfacture. I understand this was not part of your proposals but the location of the project and yourselves to the project site would be essentiall for our acceptance of this project"
Zefram considered, this was a shock, but a true centre for development not just a backyard workshop was beyond his expectations, he looked at Lily, who nodded. He sighed extending a hand "Its a deal". There was so much to do.
Chimera Class
Description
The first Chimera class were created in the late 2020's under the auspices of the United Earth Government for the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit upon the completion of a series of Dreadnought Class star-ships built using at the time entirely Human built equipment. Unlike these vessels the Chimera Class was a hybrid class built of a fusion of Ethereal Technology recovered from the Ethereal War and human technological developments from lesson learned from the Dreadnought series and from the wartime Firestorm Interceptor.
Owing to the lack of capacity in this time period to produce any of the relevant materials for the vessels such Vahlenite, Elerium and Meld the vessels themselves were only one-third the size of a corresponding Dreadnought and relied very heavily on MEC and Psionic pilots to reduce crew numbers to below seventy owing to the restricted living space caused by the heavy usage of standard human grade materials in several armour belts and structural sections rather than the more durable Vahlenite.
Inspite of this the Chimera class were significantly superior in offensive capacity, defensive capacity, speed and manoeuvrability so much much so that one Chimera was a match for three Dreadnoughts in test combat conditions held in 2032. THis was due to the high power generation provided by the mixture of Fusion and Elerium generators within which were designed to prevent Elerium usage during general operations but high level power generation during combat conditions. The Chimera Class underwent a significant overhaul in the late 2040's with addition of Wormhole Drives, first to the Odyssey and Destiny then to all seven vessels in the early 2050s after the first FTL voyage to Alpha Centauri and colony establishment in 2057.
Ship Weapons;
- 2 x Fusion Lance
- 4 x Plasma Canons
- Ghost System drones with optical camouflage system
Defences
- Ethereal based forcefield system
- Vahlenite Outer Armour Belt
- 21st Century Military Grade Armour Belt. EMP Shielded
Power and Engines
- 4 x Fusion Cores
- 3 x Ethereal Power Cores
- 2 x Fusion Lance Sublight Drive
- post refit 1 x Dusiberg Wormhole Drive
Vessels Built
- UES Odyssey
- UES Retribution
- UES Defiant
- UES Destiny
- UES Avenger
- UES Victory
- UES Thunderchild
TIME Person of 2056
The Man who would be King
With the global elections rapidly approaching the name on everyone's lips of course has been that of Indian born candidate for the Presidency of the Council of Nations, Khan Nonnien Singh; one of first X-Com augments, a war hero who helped destroy the Temple Ship, three Prime Minister of India, founder of the Optimal Terra party and the co-founder of Khanate Genetics one of the four biggest providers of gene augmentation, psionic training and nannite research in the solar system and now running for the highest office possible under his banner of superior ability breeds superior ambition. Born to a poor Sikh family in the late mid 20th Century, Mr. Singh has often joked he was destined for the augmentation process as his family had been involved in the then Indian Eugenics Society and pressured the young Khan to expand his horizons and his potential. His genius was very much evident at an early age being the top of class through his academic career, acquiring three degrees (in Agricultural Breeding, Business Administration and Military History) before enrolling in his native countries military in the early nineteen nineties while in his twenties and while his record is sealed it is evident he rose rapidly and had become one of the most valuable operatives of the Special Frontier Force even as he was growing into his forties.
The turning point for his live of course would come in the horror of the Alien Invasion of 2016 when already technically retired the older and experienced Khan became the senior Indian officer to become involved in the then highly secretive X-Com project and through natural ability and skill rapidly rose to the elite Alpha Squad through the conflict under the call-sign "Tyrant" and while the majority of his operations remain classified to this day he is still widely celebrated in India as the Hero of Mumbai due to what is known of his actions in the defeat of a chryssalid attack; supposedly taking out three of the walking nightmares in one action with a rocket launcher during the height of the fighting to rescue stranded civilians. It is unknown when exactly, or what exact augmentations were received, that Mr. Singh became the first X-Com volunteer of gene modification, volunteering partially he said later in confirmations of his parents beliefs on the betterment of humanity, but also as the oldest member of the Squad and in his opinion the most acceptable casualty if the treatment proved fatal or detrimental.
This though was far from the case and indeed Khan is often held up as the paragon of augmentation processes and the need to further discover the secrets of Meld as today the almost ninety year old Khan possesses the physical characteristics of a man in his late thirties according to his public record and an increased healing and virtual immunity to disease, as Khan himself pointed out during one of the primary debates over his age and augmentation that he has all the benefits of age and wisdom with none of the physical detriments of getting to be that old. In the thirty years since the War in both his political and business life Mr. Singh has publicly pushed for greater development and uptake of genetic augmentations for even the poorest strata of society and increased funding for pre-natal treatment to prevent heredity diseases occurring among infants, Khanate Genetics founded in 2026 for example was one of the first companies to push aggressively into the Africa of the post-war chaos where warlord-ism still persisted, during the rebuilding period of the late 2020's and 2030's and is greatly credited with beating back diseases such Ethereal dysentery, Ebola and Nile Fever that had erupted there in the chaos. It is here Mr. Singh would find his fortune, becoming one of the one hundred wealthiest persons on the planet by the late 2030's.
Indeed never one to sit still Mr. Singh would use this fortune to push environmental and augmentation principles through mass media and politics, going unto form the Optimal Terra party in 2039 as the globe began to enter the post-Shipbuilders recession crises. Already a hero in India due to his war record, provision of affordable augmentation and being a major provider of employment the ambitious Khan easily swept to power there in 2042 a Prime Minister, a position he has been easily reflected though since with a broad range of popular polices and an economic model largely seen for helping India been the first out of the recession, though some complaints have been made of curbing civil liberties by his opponents. With his party making major gains outside India in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan and parts of Europe as the past decade proceeded and the level of support within the UEG for change to the post-War status quo growing every year he now stands possibly months away from the crowning achievement of his life and only a vote away from guiding humanity down the forking crossroads to its destiny amongst the stars.
