Apathy

by Throwaway1971

Not important please ignore

22. Entry 193-200

After Activation 1132 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1093 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 106-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1964 - Command and Conquer Rise of the Reds Universe

Edyta Nowak had been born in Poland during the Second World War, then came the Soviets and life had not improved. At 20 years of age, she had been through life that had given nothing, and in many cases, decided to take away instead. Living by on scraps, barely making each day work as the corruption prevented so much of what she needed from reaching her.

It was therefore with great alacrity that she accepted the offer of a better life by a NOD recruiter. They promised 3 meals a day, sometimes 4, a number that quite frankly astounded her and she signed up faster than they could get the papers in front of her.

Granted, she didn't really care about their ideology and all that annoying stuff in the beginning, and as of right now, she couldn't say she cared much at all for their Brotherhood, Unity, Peace thing.

It sounded nice but life had taught her those were all just words.

That being said, she did very much enjoy the meals they had provided, the food being a welcome sight and she had to fight very hard to not hoard it away somewhere. The others in her unit being of the same fate, barely able to keep their survival instincts in check, the fear that it was all temporary driving them.

Then there came the training, it had been brutal. She was not sure at all if her body could keep up with it, the whole program being an excuse to simply tear apart her body and rebuild it from the ground up. Thankfully the meals had given enough energy and materials that she was able to power through the training, and build herself a new body whilst doing so.

It was not the soft one she had come into the training camp with, this one was a body of iron, forged to fight in the fires of war. She knew her worth and trained as hard as she could. The more she bled on the training mat, the less she would bleed on the field, or so the instructors taught her.

Regardless, she had been made into a weapon, every part of her trained, broken, reforged, and stamped with approval.

During it all, she had been inundated with the "education" process and while things weren't… fully crazy… they were still weird enough to comment on. Unbeknownst to her, she had been brainwashed to follow certain cues, and while she was not a believer, she wouldn't betray NOD either. A good "mercenary".

Edyta and her unit were being sent into Rhodesia, their task being to secure the fledgling nation, eliminate or force out all other groups and claim it for themselves. Once the initial point of entry was clear, they would be receiving reinforcements from NOD HQ Proper, armed with their special weapons. Edyta was still stuck using her AKM, not that she really minded, the AK was certainly no slouch when it came down to it.

While the full NOD members got the better kit, it wasn't really worth the price of admission in Edyta's opinion, The whole "accept Catherine as your lord and saviour" bit was kind of iffy. So long as she was in the periphery, she wouldn't be expected to be doing anything too absurd, like the cult thing. That was freaky.

Which was why she was here now, inside the cargo plane that had been refurbished to allow for a parachute drop out of its rear bay. Inside were 50 recruits, the same recruits that had joined alongside Edyta, their origins all from the Eastern Bloc. All of them were armed and armoured in the same way that a USSR infantryman was, something to deliberately sow confusion into the ranks of those underneath them. Each was armed with an AKM with a select few with the RPK Machine Gun for fire support. A few RPG-7s were sprinkled amongst them, more for bunker busting than the expectation of meeting armour in the field. In an effort to counter aircraft that might be beyond the range of their weapons, a few ZSU-23-4s or rather "Shiika"s would be dropped by parachute following their securing of the drop zone.

Alongside that were the standard grenades, explosives, rations, sleeping kit, and general amenities that one brought to a warzone. If all went according to plan, it would be over in a week, and they would once again be having hot showers.

"Up!" Came the shout, the blinker light was red. The voice was in Russian, they had all been trained in the language, written and verbal. They were only to speak Russian while inside of Rhodesia, just to make things more confusing for those observing or fighting against them. If they thought it was a full Russian invasion, with soldiers wearing Russian high end gear, using Russian the latest weapons, speaking Russian… well, there would only be one conclusion to draw from that. Especially once they got a Shiika on the ground, something that had only started production a few years ago. Only after the first objective had been secured, they had AA and that was too dangerous to bring in low flying and slow aircraft.

Once on their feet, all of them began to run their hands over those in front of them. Checking the parachute, making sure there was nothing it could get stuck on, checking everything was strapped in properly, losing your rifle on the drop down would be bad. Once everything was clear, a slap to the right shoulder, if it wasn't, then a slap to the left, and a tug to the offending area. They had reserve chutes of course, but it would be particularly bad if someone was to splat instead of roll.

"Call off!" Came the voice again, the platoon leader. Her voice only went a third of the way, but everyone else was shouting alongside her, just to make sure everyone could hear, and to confirm that they hard.

"1 Green!"

"2 Green!"

…

"48 Green!"

"49 Green!"

"50 Green!"

"All Green!" Said the last person, the one in front echoing his words, and the one in front of her echoing the line further. Once it reached the platoon leader, she called out again.

"Standby!" They would wait for the light to go green before dropping out of the sky. Which made it sound so much worse than it actually was. They would be supported, of course, dying from impact would be particularly bad, a parachute made all the difference. Hopefully. There had been the standard horror stories of how parachutes with little rips would suddenly tear apart and drop their victims to the ground, head first.

Edyta in particular, wasn't quite ready for that. She wanted to live in all honesty. She wanted her 3 meals a day, she wanted to be able to raise a family, she wanted to be able to have a home to come home to.

"Orange!" The platoon commander called, the back bay ramp of the cargo plane descending in response. Time soon to jump.

"Green!" And off they went, two at a time, the hooks on their parachutes hung on the rail above their heads, the simple act of just walking out of the bay doors pulling their parachutes out for them, sending them into the unknown. The night sky outside a sea of pitch, where there was nothing to see, the darkness covering everything in a quilt of black. The stars blinked away in the sky, the dark red light that illuminated the paratroopers not quite blocking them from view.

Then it was Edyta's turn, the shuffle forward ending rather dramatically, a ramp and the abyss waiting for her. The reassuring back of whoever it was in front of her gone. She shook her head and gritted her teeth, a jog and a leap, out into the world, arms outstretched. She was doing this for her future home.

The home that NOD offered that to her, quite pragmatically seeing that she would never be a true believer. Instead, she was offered a contract, serve for 10 years and she would be free. Not only that, she would be paid a lump sum at the end of her contract, a new identity, a new face, a new home in any country she chose. She would be free, and she would fight to the last breath for that dream.

What NOD offered her, and the others, was something that they would very willingly kill for. It was their escape from the Eastern Bloc, many of them likely had already done worse. Do what was necessary then be set free. They might die, true. But the promise at the end of the tunnel was simply too tempting to not at least try to reach. They who were destined to die, forgotten in an alley somewhere, now at least had a chance of a life. It would be work… but seriously, they were from the Eastern Bloc, work was all they knew, here… it was a little more wet, a little more grisly, but it was still work.

The jerk that brought her body upright again, the ease of the wall of air on her face, the rather sedate feeling of drifting through the air. The parachute had deployed and it looked like she was on track. Looking down, Edyta saw the faint, dark grey splotches that indicated that there were the others of her platoon down there. Unfortunately, the parachutes were of the "standard" variety, there would be no steering going on here.

The wind was a little pain, a chance that they would be blown off course. The plan called for them to arrive in force at the base of the Rhodesian military. There had been some rather loud murmurings of discontent, and conflicts had broken out already between the insurrectionists and the government. Edyta didn't care really, all she knew was that this was a base on the border of Rhodesia, a base that controlled one of 3 border crossings into South Africa on the East side of the Botswana border.

Taking control of this would mean that any attempts to enter the country from the south would be limited, the reinforcements coming in from South Africa severely hampered, as was the aid on offer. Politics at its finest on display. The White minority rule supporting the White minority rule, fearful of what could happen if the black majority won.

The path down from the skies was a long one, the darkness making it seem as if it would go on forever. She couldn't see the ground from up here, she wouldn't see it until it was barely a few meters away, giving her little time to react. The constant state of alertness and boredom doing a number on her mind, wanting to be on the ground, yet also not. The knowledge that hitting the ground was going to hurt, it always did, but not hitting the ground meant staying up here in the air.

She sighed, made slightly difficult by the harness restricting her chest, but not impossible. It took dedication to sigh when one was dropping through the sky, suspended by a piece of cloth, onto a potentially hostile position. They would try to limit casualties of course, group up, overwhelm them, offer them the chance to surrender, if they refused, kill them.

They would make the choice of surrender look attractive of course, grouping up around them and making it clear that there was no way they were getting out of this if they maintained their ready stance. There were approximately 150 of them down there, ending this quickly would be best for both parties, while the NOD trained paratroopers were untested, they were also NOD trained.

Then there was the ground, a few trees here and there, but the ground. Edyta braced herself, ready to fold into a roll that would send the shock of impact through her entire body, preventing the shattering of her legs, an unpleasant feeling she had been told.

And she was up, taking off her parachute, checking weapons, and looking up at the sky, trying to find someone to link up with. There, weapon up, Edyta stalked over.

The 78th Expeditionary Force had arrived, and they were ready.

After Activation 1132 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1093 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 106-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1964 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

Edyta Nowak, Corporal of the 78th Expeditionary Force had dropped in, Edyta was now on the ground, on her two feet, AKM in her hands, thinking very hard about the fact that the night… was fucking dark.

Not, 'it's so dark that I can't see the trees', no, It was, 'it's so dark I can't see my fucking hands.'

As she stood there, she frowned at the sky, thinking that the stars and the moon were being very impolite tonight. Here she was, on a sneaky mission, and what do they do? They go and be all fucking dark.

But the mission was on a sliver moon. Shut up brain.

She gave an almighty sigh and kept moving forward, every step being very carefully placed. Slide the foot forward, ever so gently, then the one after that. Always keep the weight on the back foot, transfer weight slowly. Doing it too fast means that you might dislodge some rocks, some dirt, and you make some sound. Sound is bad. Very bad. Don't make sound.

Who knows what is out there. Watching. Listening. Waiting. Just there, out of reach, clawed hands, longer than fingers… no… it was all part of a hand, there are no fingers. Just claws. Long claws dark as the night that shrouded them, drinking in greedily of the blackness, the light shimmer of starlight like little pearls on its surface. 12 claws, 2 hands, stretching out, from the darkness, slowly, graspingly, little abortive grabbing motions.

It can't wait, it hungers, it desires, it craves. So close, ever so close, it comes forward. Shuffling in the dirt, the pale orange dirt of the bush, the scraggly trees poking upright with their diminutive forms, they offer no hiding place, no refuge. It seeks, coming closer. Ever closer. More it seems to say. It wants to devour more. No, it craves more. You wonder what else it had eaten, what else is there behind those dreadful, dreadful claws.

Closer it comes, closer still. The rank breath of the creature registering in the nostrils, the scent of death, of decay, of fear. It enjoys the pains of its victims, to hear them scream, to hear them beg for mercy, to die quickly.

But it will not relent, for it feeds on the darkness, on the suffering. It plucks it out of the hearts of man, it weaves it together with its long, dreadful claws, and it fashions for itself a cloak. A cloak made from the darkest depths of man, his greatest despair, his greatest pain.

Closer. Closer it comes, from out of the darkness. The inky night stains what lies beyond those hands, pale, loosely bound skin, like that of a long dead mummy, the flesh long since decayed. It reaches out, each clawtip dripping in malice.

Closer. Closer it comes. The claw comes. One tip touches the skin, slowly inserting itself inside the skin. There is no pain, there is no sensation. You can see it enter, sliding itself deeper and deeper into your body. More. More.

You want more.

Edyta shook herself out of the little daydream… or rather night dream she had, thinking of terrible possibilities was a very bad idea when she was in enemy territory with very real threats being arrayed against her and not her nightmares. But the dark made it so easy.

A creep through the bush, eyes peeled for what might be coming next. Slowly, carefully, head constantly turning, eyes swivelling in their sockets. Slowly of course. Slowly. The sound of skin against collar might give her away, the movement might trigger someone's peripheral vision. So many ifs, so many buts.

She had to link with the rest of the platoon. If not, she would just make her way over the base on her own, the attack would begin at dawn, and if everyone was heading there in the first place… well, they would naturally meet each other on the way. Naturally, they weren't really expected to be able to find everyone, the night was already dark enough that it would be practically impossible in their timeframe.

Unfortunately for the NOD operatives, there was a distinctive lack of crickets in Rhodesia, the distinctive clickers that the paratroopers in the 2nd world war used to identify each other being more of a giveaway than an actually useful tool here. On the other hand, there was an excess of winged insects and a specially designed clicker had been issued, this one did a whirr, like that of a butterfly's wings. Each one was the size of a thumb and magnetic, allowing it to be attached to the steel receivers of their rifles. Even as she walked, Edyta made sure that the clicker was being pressed in the predetermined pattern, one long, 2 short, 1 long.

Ears were strained to hear the same pattern, ready to angle her approach to meet the newcomer.

She heard it now. Slowly turning and making her way over to the source of the sound, carefully modulating her own clicks to match it. The dark silhouette gave away the other first, one that had the distinctive Russian bowl helmet, no doubt her own revealing her status to the newcomer. They got in close and found depression in the ground they could both kneel in. A small light came on, shielded by the large waterproof cloak that had been thrown over them, their heads being the posts that held it up. Under the cloak Edyta could see her new partner, a youngish girl, her name eluded her, however. No matter, they weren't here to make friends. She motioned with her hands, rapidly signing, the other woman replying in kind. At the end of it they both smiled and doused the light, repacking the cloak in and getting ready to head off. The woman had not found anyone else, no friendlies or enemies. Edyta would take point and the woman, rearguard.

And off they went, at their stalker pace in the general direction of the border base.

Edyta was lying on her front, protecting the back of her neck with her hands as another explosive went off, showering her with dust and little patters of debris.

Things had been going so well... until they hadn't. The 150 men had been ready to give up to the 47 paratroopers. 3 had gone missing, probably dead on some tree somewhere, but the rest of them still made an intimidating enough force to scare them into submission.

Until a convoy had arrived, giving them the 'courage' to fight back, 6 M113 APCs, 4 Jeeps with Machine guns on the back, and 8 trucks filled with men. Unfortunately for the paratroopers they were right, that would have been too much for them, they didn't have the men to take on something like that. The stupid, try not to kill them order had screwed them over, if they had been able to just take them all out, they could have ambushed the convoy and called it a day. Now… now they were stuck with fighting off a superior force, one that had vehicles and support weapons.

Edyta had mentally despaired until a streak of smoke slammed into the side of one of the M113s, detonating inside of it. There was a moment of silence before the screams began, the ammunition for the .50 cal on top cooking off, burning those still alive inside it… alive. The screams galvanized the others in the 78th and they let loose with the rest of the rockets, striking jeep, APC, and truck alike. Setting them on fire, brutally maiming those inside, the others firing their rifles and machine guns to pick off those that survived, and to suppress the base garrison.

The paratroopers had encircled the base, a slight elevation allowing them to see into the base proper. Unfortunately, it meant they were not inside, which made what came next a very dangerous proposition. To attack the garrison that were now, very unwilling to surrender, their false courage driven by a need to avenge those that just died.

Stupidity on all sides, next time they should just kill everyone, screw being nice. Edyta with her rifle would been rather underwhelming when it came down to it. Her contribution being just more fire, fire that the RPK's could sustain at a better rate. No, she was a rifleman and the response as to what to do in this situation had been drilled into her head, attack, attack, attack.

And so she did.

Under the cover of the Machine Guns on the elevation who were making very sure nobody was popping their heads up to engage them, Edyta lead the way forward, a squad of 6 following behind. There was a fence, it needed to be but through, climbing it was just asking to be shot dead. A roll of burner cord, a mix of aluminium, plastic, and threaded with magnesium was brought out. The paratrooper cutting 2 strips and sticking them between the posts of the fence, leaving the 2nd on to Edyta. Once they were placed, a simple flick of the lighter and they were burning.

The 7 of them made sure to cover their eyes or turn their heads away, aluminium tended to burn very brightly, and very hot. Avoiding skin contact was a good idea considering a puck of the stuff could melt through a tank.

With the fence down, they went in. The first building was ahead of them, a squat, white, square building with a blue tinned roof. Along the top, was a series of flat rectangular windows, framed with what looked to be soft wood painted blue as well. Going around would be a bad idea, straight into the open, the base itself had the buildings arranged around a central square clearing. A crossfire of those bunkering down in the buildings would tear them apart.

Edyta brought out a demolition charge, a block of plastic explosive that unfolded into a general rectangle about a meter and a half high, half that again wide. It had hung beneath her backpack, the damn thing weighed nearly 5 kilograms, a pain to carry, a bigger pain to carry in Rhodesia. The humidity and the heat made life itself agony. How she wished that they had been deployed to Poland instead, it was cold there this time of year.

Still, the charge was primed, the 7 of them giving it a healthy amount of space to avoid being made into meat patty. One detonation later, and a set of what NOD called "flashbangs" were thrown into the room. Loud bangs and flashes of lights indicated it was now "safe" to enter, the 7 of them doing so, rifles held up, standard breaching procedure. Swivelling like a turret, Edyta pulled the trigger twice, 2 bullets slamming into the man rolling about on the floor in front of her, his hands held to his eyes as he whimpered in agony.

2 more bullets into his head and he was confirmed.

Turning around, Edyta frowned, one of their number had been shot in the right leg, a problem since it had hit the artery, the pulsing blood told her that much at least. Given that they had no qualified doctors, and securing the base would take half an hour at the minimum… he was not going to survive unless they did something drastic.

Edyta motioned for some burner cord, the others seeing her intent and nodding in appreciation. The one of the floor… not as much with appreciation, more dread. Still, if he wanted to live, well he was going to have to bear with it. Taking out a shot of morphine, she jabbed him in the chest with it, under the body armour why didn't it hit that instead, before wrapping a length of the cord around his leg. The others held him down, one to each limb, trying to keep the other leg away from the burner cord as much as possible.

Ignition, screams, whimpers, one severed and cauterized leg stump. Not bad. Edyta gave a nod of approval before signalling they should wrap that up and put him somewhere safe.

Turning back, Edyta planned out an angle of attack. They were down 1 man and there was another set of buildings. Grenades? Yes, no need to bother with a safe breach, just grenade them.

The buildings to the left and right of hers had been taken by other rifles in the time she spent dealing with her wounded. Security at least.

She signalled the squad, tear gas, windows.

They nodded, edging out the door and peeking, rifles ready. Nothing. Good.

They pushed out, Edyta taking up the rear, rifle in one hand, the other braced on the wall, there wouldn't be anyone coming from behind to take them out. If by some miracle they survived those behind her, they would find Edyta waiting.

The chink of the pins being pulled brought her out of it, the tear gas grenades were armed, primed and quickly thrown into the rooms through the windows above. The squad donned their gas masks, dealing with the uncomfortable nature of it since tear gas was not something pleasant to be exposed to. The coughing in the room and the slam of the door being opened told her they had tried to escape into the open. Unfortunately, the squad had more than enough and as the other squads saw their tactics, they adopted them as well.

There was no way to hide yourself when it came to teargas, coughing would always give you away. It meant the buildings could be left, the knowledge they were clear leaving them pristine, no giant holes caused by breachings.

The base garrison was being herded inward, a wave of toxic gas following behind them, the masked figured just waltzing through the smoke looking like spectres of death. They would die with those images tattooed into their minds, knowing they had caused their own deaths with their foolishness. If they had surrendered earlier, there would be none of this, now? Now they had to die.

One did not spit on NOD's offer and expect it to be offered a second time.

As the garrison was herded into the open square in the center… well, they met a wall of fire from the machine guns that had been suppressing the buildings from the elevations. Now it was less suppression, more a massacre, the garrison cut down as they ran into the open. Those that had been bunkering down unable to handle their instinctive response to the tear gas had run out as well. It mattered not who they were, they all died, bullets tearing into them, sprays of blood painting the ground and the walls behind them.

On the other side of the base… it… it was on fire. Apparently, someone had decided that breaching each room was a waste of time and decided to just set it all on fire. The same effect as the tear gas, herding them all inward… just… more dramatic.

It had taken a while but the base was secure, now they just had to secure it and wait for the reinforcements that had been signalled for, and to prepared for the reinforcements the garrison no doubt called in.

Which came first… well, that would be interesting.

Edyta turned and began coordinating the medical efforts, all the wounded would be brought to the square for classification and treatment. Others were poking through the garrison, shooting those that were pretending to be dead, shooting those that tried to surrender, shoving all the bodies into a pile for burning.

Standard Operating Procedure.

NOD had arrived, NOD had conquered, NOD was ready for the world.

And Edyta wanted her retirement, she was ready to fight anyone for it.

After Activation 1132 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1093 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 106-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1964 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

In the end, it had taken less than the projected week for the NOD forces to capture the country of Rhodesia for themselves. They didn't outright call themselves NOD, merely "mercenaries of a concerned third party."

It had taken the world by storm really, their response to NOD's capture of Rhodesia, the installation of a new government of black Rhodesians and overseeing the disarmament of the Rhodesian military… well, it ruffled a few feathers. The peoples of the world asking who exactly this third party was, why they were interfering with sovereign matters, why exactly NOD had top of the line Russian equipment, was it the USSR that was behind this?

The mercenaries all spoke Russian, all of them looked to be from the Eastern Bloc, pale, white, evil. Of course, Russia refuted them of course, they didn't look evil. The media didn't buy it for a moment and for a week or 2 the governments didn't either, until the Russians pointed out that those installed into power did not in actual fact have any ties with communism, not in their past, not in the funding, nothing.

All of it was a disinformation campaign with Russia as the scapegoat. Shots were being made in the dark until Occam's Razor was applied and the only reasonable instigator was found.

NOD.

NOD was somehow behind this, somehow receiving that much equipment from Russia, even those that shouldn't of even have been sent in a widespread manner to units outside of Moscow yet. Something very suspicious was going on and Russia delved into its own government, corruption was fine and all until it hurt them on the world stage. The media was completely unaware of course, most of the government wasn't aware, NOD was top secret, beyond top secret, maybe even top top secret.

By the same token, the US and other factions began looking into their own, trying to find if there had been large amounts of equipment going missing. While Russia made it easy with their corruption, it did not mean that it could not happen to them. They had to be careful, if it was instead people speaking German, using German weaponry, equipment, and clothing, well it could have set off a massive international incident.

They had to lock down everything, double sentries, double everything until all vectors were locked down. It was all hands on deck for the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, the R divisions of various nations were rushing themselves, they needed better surveillance technology to protect themselves, they needed better equipment, better everything. NOD had shown that it not only had saboteurs, but also very well trained infantry as well.

The Rhodesian forces had tried to launch counterattacks on them from outside and inside the country, it had not gone well, entire companies wiped out in a matter of hours.

NOD had shown they had the teeth to go along with the claws and people were now very worried.

"Well, what do we have on them?"

"Nothing sir."

"Well, fuck."

"Yes, sir."

"What do we have that we can show to the President?"

"We know that they killed JFK sir."

"Is that all?"

"They've been stealing research data, assassinating public figures?"

"No, no. Anything on the way they operate, where they might be operating from, the little things man."

"No sir, we just know that they have a very good infiltration team and their takeover of Rhodesia indicates they have a sizable ground and air force of some kind."

"Any indication of where they got this equipment?"

"No sir."

"Fuck me."

"Yes, sir. I mean no sir."

"Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Shut it."

"Yes, sir."

Lyndon B Johnson, President of the United States of America following the death of President John F Kennedy at the hands of a NOD assassin, stared at the document in front of him. The only reason that he knew about the ones behind the death of Kennedy, was because of the report in front of him now.

He had known that the organization that called itself NOD was a threat, able to penetrate their greatest security measures and take what they want with no repercussions. Anyone who tried to stop them usually ended up dead, he had over 300 soldiers so far who had died due to "training accidents". They weren't going to be able to sustain this for very long at this rate. Only a year and this many dead?

From what he understood from the GDI initiative, their allies in Europe and the Russians were facing the same issues, rampant raids from this NOD. While they left the scientists alive, no doubt to do more research for them, they tended to kill everyone else. At the same time, they also demonstrated a very clear fact that that didn't need what they were stealing. The tiny amount of materials retrieved from the incursions that their forces managed to stop indicating they were advanced beyond belief. Alloys, plastics, resins, all of it being so advanced that their own research divisions were seeing advances 40-50 years into the future once they reverse engineered them.

It was all so much to take in and Lyndon wasn't sure that he was the right man for the job. He was old and this was a world that was changing so very fast. He had thought that maybe a few regional conflicts here and there, a proxy war even would be the extent of his worries. Now this?

He sighed. He had hoped that he would be able to pass through civil liberty bills while he was President, perhaps try and bring America into the 20th century instead of wallowing in the past like they were. Their civil liberties, laws, even treatment of their own citizens being something akin to an 18th century colonial power. It was pitiful and America could be so much more.

Yet now… now he had to make the hard decisions.

Liberties for a peoples who needed freedom? Or to bow to the necessities and push through more stifling, suppressive laws to defend his country?

He sighed again. This wasn't what he planned when he signed up at all. Nothing was going according to plan at this rate.

With Rhodesia secured, the Minds then turned their attention to South Africa. A place where the minority ruled the majority, not inherently a bad thing, too big a government tended to inefficiency after all.

Yet this one tried its very hardest to suppress and control the majority, out of fear, lots of delicious fear.

The Minds were of a mind to show them that sometimes holding your fear at bay, locking it in a cage was in fact, the worse thing you could do.

Oh yes, this would be something to look forward to.

South Africa, a land like the South of the USA, where lynchings were common, a way to assert dominance over the majority, to keep in their minds a culture of fear, prohibiting them from rising up. Brutal retaliations for the smallest of things to keep the majority subservient. The Minds were interested in seeing what would happen once it switched the other way around.

To that end, the Minds were facilitating NOD's involvement in the country, to have their forces infiltrate, arm and train the black population within. Once they were of a standard, there would be a violent and bloody revolt, the whites ejected from the country or killed, a population of previously suppressed, now powerful blacks at the helm of their own country.

A population that saw the same opportunity across Africa, a chance to go and "liberate" their own. Violent and armed conflict, driving across the African subcontinent, all the way up to the Sahara desert and to the East. Reclaim all of it for the African peoples, maybe even give it back to the tribes that once owned it… assuming they still existed of course.

A very nice idealistic view of how they were going to do things, now all that was left was actually carrying it out.

The rest of the world would resist of course. France, Germany, the other European countries still had their descendants and in France's case, colonies on the subcontinent. Others still had their interests in the country, DeBeers with their diamonds, the gold, iron, wood, rare earth minerals and so many more things present in the massive area of land. A land of opportunity and riches… if you had the firepower and willingness to kill for it.

The peoples of the world did not know of course about the decline of the African subcontinent as it devolved into a state of anarchy in some cases and subsisting off piracy in others, an entire landmass the size of the Northern American continent ripe for exploitation by those outside of it and in very rare cases, those inside it.

The Minds had seen and the Minds agreed, the continent must be united for a powerful humanity, there was simply too much untapped resources for it to go the way of the canon timeline.

War, rebuilding, strength. Admittedly it would be a tiny war, the only thing notable about it being the nature of it. One of an indigenous peoples reclaiming their lands from a colonial invader, a first. The Vietnamese conflict had not yet been resolved completely, after all, maybe they could even consider it a race of sorts?

On the matter of Vietnam, NOD was also considering their own intervention. A third party, an entirely new system of government to fight against the capitalist and communist forces that were about to begin their own conflicts. It would be difficult, but it was not without merit, Vietnam would become one of the powerful economies on the Asian subcontinent, their peoples concentrated into cities for capitalistic growth.

That much untapped labour, yes, it was very attractive indeed. And with Vietnam under their control, direct access to Japan, Cambodia, Laos, China, the Philippines and more was possible. A strategic target of great proportions, all ready and waiting for NOD to just waltz in and take what they wanted.

In other news, the stagnation of the Russo-Asia region before, during, and after the fall of the Communist regime would need to be prevented at all costs. There was not enough time to allow them 30 years to wallow in their own failings. To that end, it would be better if the USSR never fell in the first place but kept going. Naturally, it would need to be boosted, its own peoples were unmotivated, unwilling, suffering, its military full of conscripts, its ruling elite all corrupt beyond definitions.

Things needed to change and the Minds were very willing to bring about that change. It would be through NOD of course, if you had a global terrorist organization, why not use it?

An assassination of the entire ruling elite, having their "proteges" (that totally didn't turn up out of nowhere) take over, bring about reforms for both the people and the ruling class, industrial reforms to bring Soviet engineering up to standard and so much more. The USSR needed to continue to exist, and it would need to start working to make sure that became true.

Europe on the other hand needed to be welded closer to the US, a way to ensure that they would not be subsumed by the USSR as it became stronger, dominant, and as was human nature, outward looking, hungry for conquest.

Capitalism needed to die of course, it was useless in the face of what was coming, a barter economy system that did not focus on profits being what they needed, a Europe that wasnt tearing itself apart by the time the Scrin arrived. A mentality of a "Europe" becoming embedded in their minds. None of that German bankers controlling everything, they had no idea of what they were doing, no it needed to be properly egalitarian. And for that to happen, the Southern tips of Europe needed to be made into equals if they wanted their voices heard.

The USA, South America, the Arab states, Australia, South East Asia? All of them needed tweaking as well, so many little things, so little time.

In short, so many little things needed to be done to make the world into something ready to fight the Scrin, and to make them think that it was "them" that made it into that shape. Not some global terrorist agency.

It would take time, but this sort of social building was very interesting to the Minds thankfully, no world ending here.

After Activation 1133 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1094 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 106-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1965 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

1965 is the year that it all changed. Forgive the hyperbole, but 1965 is the year that the African Reconquest beginning in South Africa, eventually swept up to take all of the African subcontinent under its wings. 1965 is the year that "Caretakers", intervened in the Second Indo-China war as a means of interfering with the proxy war that was costing hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. 1965 was the year where the USSR's government, ruling elite, military leadership, and more were all killed in an event later known as the Bloody Valentine incident, plunging the entire USSR into a state of turmoil until a new leadership stood up, one that remodelled the USSR into the beginnings of the USSR we know today.

1965 was the year that in South America, the "legalizar" movement began, an attempt to decriminalize drugs, which when the complicity of the governments with the drug cartels was revealed, led to a wide-reaching period of civil unrest that plunged Mexico and then the rest of the continent into civil war. In the end, it welded together the South American Union, an economic and political powerhouse rivalling the US, Europe, China, the USSR and more in strength.

1965 was the year that Mao Zedong was assassinated, with Deng Xiaoping assuming an unofficial leadership position of the country of China and bringing about wide-ranging internal reforms to open up China to the world. While the Great Leap Forward could not be forgotten or reversed, the future was bright for the new China.

1965 was the year that the Mediterranean European states, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and more joined together in their own Southern European Union as part of a free trade treaty, a means of bolstering their economies by trading what they needed with goods instead of cash. An unprecedented move that allowed for them to supplement each other's weaknesses and to bring forth a much more unified and powerful voice against the powerful French, German and British in Europe.

Even more, events not counted here occurred, all in the year of 1965, the Philippines experiencing their own uprisings at the hands of what were communist guerillas, only narrowly defeated by the intervention of the Caretaker mercenary army. Or the changes in the Australian government to allow for more immigration, not solely from Britain but from the Mediterranean areas and beyond, a move that marked a significant change from their White Australia Policy of old. And so many more, more than this introduction can contain.

It was only in hindsight that we, the academic circles of the world realised that it was all due to the NOD Organization, every action orchestrated by them to prepare us for the greatest challenges of our lives. With the benefit of hindsight we can thank them for the gift of life that they have given us, even if at the time it appeared that they were merely toying with the world.

It is because of NOD that we are here, it is because of NOD that humanity survived the Scrin, thrived in the aftermath and rose to where we are today.

Isaac Newton, "1965 and the Rise of NOD", Oxford University Press, London, 2178, pp. 1-2

Hannah smiled. The HeMU Hannah smile, the one that said "lots of people are going to be dying very soon" smile.

It was a smile that promised death, destruction, and complete carnage on a scale never before seen. Then again, this was her standard smile before every assassination so it wasn't quite truthful. But in Hannah's head, every assassination was just like the first, the feeling of the knife biting into the target, every atom that it went deeper in, was one that brought untold pleasures into her mind. Every slice was one to be savoured, every kill special.

Due to the way that she refreshed her memories, dulling the sensation of the previous kills in her mind had something to do with it. Each sensation as fresh as ever. After every mission Hannah would submit herself to a memory modifier of sorts, to allow for the maximum sensation to be brought from each and every stroke of her knife.

Hannah shook her head, there would be time to savour the moment in a bit, when she actually had her knife in the man's throat, of his heart, or his gut, or his temple… mmmm… so much potential.

The target in this case was Mao Zedong, the political leader of China, a man increasingly out of touch with the real world, to the point where he had decided to bring about a "Great Leap Forward", tapping into the excess manpower of the state in order to bring about an industrial revolution in China. In a rush to bring up the iron production of the state, they set up iron foundries as an example in the fields of farms, melting down their own tools into unusable slag.

An estimated 40 million starved due to these policies. Soon he would begin targeting the "unbelievers", stirring up the public into a frenzy of hatred against the intellectuals, the teachers, the scholars, the party itself, all to maintain his powerbase. In doing so he would set back China for several decades, where it would only begin regaining control of itself in the 90s.

The Minds deemed this to be unacceptable and NOD was going to be very much behind his death. Hannah would die here, only to pop up later, the immortal assassin, a boogeyman by which to terrify the intelligence agencies of the world. A little idea she had proposed and which had been enthusiastically accepted by the Minds.

As it was, she had evaded the guards, the security, and the man's own family after making her way into his dining room within his apartments. He would die here, before his family, his guards, and his political cronies. She in turn, would fight it out, killing as many of his political goons and the guards as she could before "succumbing" to her injuries and dying. On her back would be the tattoo that indicated that she was from NOD.

Whether or not they were going to display the body of the assassin and give away that NOD existed, or whether they would hide the body was something to be considered. They couldn't afford for the people of China and to an extent, the world to become aware of NOD, not when the other major powers were very heavily leaning on them to keep things quiet in regards to them.

It would be interesting to see what their decision was in the end.

Ah, everyone was filtering into the room now. The man was out of power currently, in 1966 he would begin his Cultural Revolution, an event that would set back China untold numbers of years, destroy millennia of cultural history and turn China into a backward hell for the next several decades.

Truly, the lengths one would go to keep power, ready to destroy everything their ancestors had worked towards. Considered Hannah, her body hidden away on the ceiling. She was using an ancient and totally not plagiarized ninja technique of using a dyed cloth to allow her to blend in with the decor.

As he sat down, he began to speak, a speech that Hannah tuned out. Something to do with him thanking his cronies, talking about striking at his enemies and whatever drivel it was that old people liked to do. Useless. Ugh.

Hannah had enough, it wasn't like she had a timetable to work with. Dropping down just behind him, she pulled out her knife and stabbed it deep into his stomach, pulling it hard to the right and spilling out his entrails. Another stab into the golden triangle at the base of his neck, nestled between his collarbone and the top of his ribcage, straight into his heart. From there she pushed him to his knees, angled the knife so it was tangential to the spine and pushed the knife downward, ripping through the front of the ribcage, tearing through the trachea as it went down.

Completing the cut where there was the gash in his stomach, opening him up like some kind of animal for the slaughter.

Everyone else at the table was staring at her, she, covered in the blood that had sprayed over her, grinned at them. The macabre image of a woman covered in blood, her face dripping with the red liquid, split by a grin of white teeth shocked them. It was only when she took the moment to carve NOD's symbol onto her victim's face that the women began screaming.

The guards burst into the room, weapons at the ready. Seeing her standing there, over the body of their beloved leader, a few of them screamed and began to fire, heedless of whether or not they had a clear line of sight. Bullets ripped into the chairs, through the table, burrowing into the flesh of those still seated, cronies and family alike.

For her part Hannah merely grinned before leaping at the political cronies, her blade flashing as she ended them, it wouldn't do to have a loyalist uprising at a later date. No no, better to end them all here while she had the chance. A few bullets slammed into her, but that was ok, it would sell the illusion of her dying all the better. Hannah took a moment to make sure the wounds weren't bleeding, wouldn't do to actually die before she finished her mission.

A second grin and she was done with the cronies, the family was still alive but they didn't matter, no male children, a negative in the patriarchal Chinese society. No sudden resurgence at a later date.

Hannah turned to the soldiers and leapt to the ones that had exited the door on the far left side of the dining hall, plowing into them and slicing with her blade, ending their lives before the poor fools even knew what had happened. Then it was a matter of diving at the group on the right aaaaand then collapsing.

Allowing her wounds to bleed freely again, Hannah took the opportunity to turn at them, grin, and say in Chinese "Brotherhood, Unity, Peace," before she "died", slumping down on the ground. Her blade would be her gift to them, made of high quality alloys that if they managed to analyze, would leap their metallurgy ahead by an order of magnitude. Which admittedly was not a difficult task given the current state of Chinese industry.

As the soldiers came over to her body, Hannah pulled her soul out of the body, looking down on it from above. Her soul tether back to the Server Farm gave her certain liberties, like wandering around without a body, free of the worry about her soul dissipating into the unknown.

The soldiers looked terrified, Hannah wasn't sure as to why. It wasn't like… oh. Ooooh. That was… hilarious actually.

Hannah had been shot in the head it looked like, losing half of her brain above her left eye, her guts were hanging out freely, the intestines dragging on the ground behind her. She must have looked like an unstoppable killing machine sent to kill them. That certainly must have been very terrifying for the poor soldiers. They were trained to kill people, not immortal women that even took the time to quote random things at them before finally dying.

The thumping of feet and shouts brought Hannah's attention upwards and she smiled. More guards had arrived and there was a brief moment of a lot of shouting, gesturing, threats of being shot, shrill screams and insults before everyone calmed down enough for something rational to come out of it.

Hannah tuned it out, turning back to see the results of her handiwork, grinning as she did so. She had certainly painted the room red.

Good work her.

Hannah allowed herself to respond to the tug of the soul tether, bringing her back to the Server Farm and a new body, she had a new mission most likely.

After Activation 1133 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1094 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 106-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1965 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

Edyta Nowak gave a brief, mental sigh as she looked up at the tree canopy.

Would it kill to have the Caretakers send her somewhere that was cold? It had been the heat and humidity of South Africa and that had been fun. 2 years down in that place, dust everywhere, a disgusting tan. Ugh.

It was like the Hell that her mother used to talk about before she killed herself. Ugh. Bad memories.

And now here she was. In Vietnam. Otherwise known as Satan's Asscrack. The place where hopes and dreams went to drown in their own sweat, forgetting the fact that the sun had ever existed and crying alone, unloved.

Yes. This was certainly a great place to be. Not.

Edyta gave another mental sigh before turning her attention back to what she was doing, a patrol of sorts. They were in a jungle, a vast, unwelcoming and frankly hateful jungle. A place where the darkness reached into places very clearly not of this world and demanded payment in souls. A place where even the smallest of creatures had some way of killing you, whether it be from poison with regards to the little frogs, or from dehydration and chronic diarrhea from disease, the jungle had it all.

It even had little men and women, all ready to jump out with their AK-47s, screaming and shouting and most importantly of all, shooting. Unfortunately for them, the Caretakers [unbeknownst to the Expeditionary Forces, the 78th included, they had their memories altered upon returning to their base, they now had been recruited by the "Caretakers". A means of confusing investigators and to provide a legitimate force with which to act around the world. Their leaves to support the roots.] had gotten very good at spotting these ambushes and were ready, rifles barking, dead people falling over.

The Caretakers had been here for not longer than a few days, setting up a landing zone for their reinforcements. The Expeditionary Forces as usual jumping in first and rolling out the red carpet for everyone else. Hopefully, this would be over in a few weeks or months. Their supplies would be coming in soon along with their heavy equipment. First, they had to build a landing strip, however, their aircraft delivering their vehicles and fire support not able to land unless those were available. A pain in the behind, but necessary, the pilots unable to do much without lots of flat land to work with.

Which was why Edyta was out here now, on patrol, making sure the natives were not bothering the crews working on the landing strip. If they died, then it was a simple matter of dropping in reinforcements, but if the clearing crew died, that was a matter of hours of work being lost, unacceptable.

Still, understanding what it was she was doing, did not mean enjoying what it was she was doing.

She gave an almighty mental sigh and got back to it.

This was going to be a lot of waiting, a lot of preparing, then a sudden massive strike South and North at the same time. They had less in terms of soldiers than both of the other factions, but they had the training and more importantly, the equipment designed specifically to counter them. Whether or not it worked remained to be seen, but that wouldn't be for a few weeks yet.

Iran was a rather… special place. A place where the CIA and MI6 had overthrown a democratically elected government in order to instate their own leadership in, so that the British could retain control of Iran's oil. A place where a different group of Muslims existed, ones that in essence, were opposed to the others, their fundamental beliefs of their religion being broader, less fundamentalist.

It was a place that was in essence, a mashing of the old world and the new world. Where the old Islamic peoples of Iran were becoming modernized jeans wearing hippies. Or at least it was for now, before the overthrow of the Shah in the future and their Islamization at least. It was going to change, of course, the Shah, their leader was to be eliminated, as was the generals of the army, and anyone else that might try and turn the government into a military dictatorship, forcing a democracy on them, at the same time strengthening them so they didn't need to radicalize to feel safe.

They would be doing it under the guise of "an interested third party". The same as what they were doing in Vietnam, the same as they were doing in Rhodesia, the same as they were doing everywhere.

All over the world, "an interested third party" would be coming in, wiping out the ruling class, instituting their own and then leaving again once things were stable. Not staying behind, not leaving a colonial presence, merely arriving, killing, instating, leaving.

Iran, Rhodesia, and Vietnam were the first victims, there would soon be many more to join them.

An "interested third party" would be behind everything. The governments of the world knew what was going on, and they were trying very hard to uncover something, anything besides the name "NOD", that would allow them to go to the public and say "look here, these guys are evil."

The problem being of course that when you go out and say "NOD is evil", well people are going to be looking at you like an idiot. They needed proof, and unfortunately, they could not use propaganda either, there wasn't enough information on them for it to actually stick.

Their propaganda of course, saw much use in World War 2 and even now in the Cold War, using stereotypes and commonly accepted portrayals of the Russians or of the Americans to great effect.

When your enemy used the alias of "an interested third party", there was very little that they could do.

It was mind numbingly irritating, NOD was outmaneuvering them at every turn. There was no real intel being left by those they killed in the raids, there was no indication of their end goal from their activities, there was nothing but death and overthrown governments in their wake.

The governments of the world were getting annoyed but their hands were tied. What was happening in Rhodesia was showing them that if they tried to mobilize their armies to counter this NOD threat, the public would very quickly ask "why". It was frustrating and demonstrated a genius of planning on the part of NOD. Something they could grudgingly applaud and hate all the same.

"This is Rhodesia National Television with your host, Lucca Kuijf." A rather nice looking black woman was on the television, nice long hair, nice dress, nice smile, nice skin… nice. Generally very nice.

"With me today is Mr Johann Flash, an aspiring Presidential Candidate!" She said, smiling professionally at the camera.

The background showed that she was currently on a farm, the fields of… crops of some kind filling the view behind her. Very scenic, would maybe take the family for a holiday there if they were very bored.

What was more interesting was when the camera panned over to a man who was standing there, looking rather nervous, a frayed white (or was once white, now beige from years of use) shirt, blue jeans (now more white than blue), and sandals on his feet. His hair was cropped short and his hand was behind his head, a gesture of abashedness, or shyness.

"Hello there." He said, seemingly using a large part of his energy with those 2 words, slumping ever so slightly once they were out.

"So, Mr Flash, why did you put your name forward for the Presidency?" Lucca asked, her face full of professional courtesy. Even if she didn't like him, or the fact that he was a farmer, or the fact that he dared show up in these kinds of clothes for her interview, she was still a professional… that had had the job for less than a month, but that didn't matter.

"Well, Lucca, can I call you Lucca? (At her minute nod he beamed and continued.) I thought to myself seeing all those well dressed boyos and girlys on screen and says to myself 'if they can do it, you can Johann.' And so I did, I put my name in one of the little boxes that the Caretakers have set up and here I am."

"What are your plans for the future if you do become President?" She asked, returning the microphone to the space in front of him so he could reply.

"Well, if I become President, I think focusing on our farms is important, we need that food you know. So many kids going hungry out there and here I am with all this food to sell. Something's going wrong there Lucca, a very big something I think. So I'm gonna change that, make things better for everyone, so everyone can get enough food." He said, beaming as he did so. Beaming with the conviction of a man that knows that he is in the right and there is nothing that can shake that conviction.

"Thank you, Mr Flash." Lucca said, smiling at him again before she turned away from him and began to walk off. The cameraman followed her, a long panning shot that probably had his calves screaming for mercy.

"Mr Flash is one of thousands of Rhodesians that have been swept up in this election fever. Just 3 months ago the Caretakers that came in and removed the government and put themselves as the standing military, prepared their "3 step to withdrawal" plan, or rather as we know it now, the "Elections, Training, Stability" plan. This plan came into effect with the little purple boxes that have been placed around the country, one in every town, district, city.

"As you know by placing your name in the box, you make yourself eligible for a position as either the President or a Senator or a Lower House member. 3 different position, each serving 3 years. You then vote in your zone for who would win, and the winner then goes up against the next town and the next, until we have an overall winner.

"Mr Johann Flash is in the contention of the quarterfinals for the position President, if we wins this round of elections, he will go on to be at the very least, the Vice President. A remarkable achievement for a man who only knew about farming until 3 months ago."

The feed cut, the television returning the viewer back to the studio where they were again talking about the election. The way that the Senators and the Lower House elections were going, already 2/3s of seats had been filled and it was predicted that with the final round of voting in a month, the final third would be filled as well.

The Caretakers were thus ensuring that everything was above board. There could be no justifications for a foreign invasion on the grounds of restoring a "rightful government" when they were all dead. At the same time, the fact that the new one was democratically elected automatically made it difficult for them to justify their actions to the public, especially with the way that the Caretakers themselves had nothing to do with the candidates, each one selecting themselves for the role.

It was a genius move, and it was maddening. Preemptively cut off their protests, their shouts against legitimacy, make it so that any invasions were going to be very hard fought ones. The armies of these new countries had been trained by the Caretakers, drilled extraordinarily hard until they were at least the standard of a standard infantryman in a developed nation elsewhere. They also purchased their vehicles from the Caretakers, denying any leverage that the other nations could wield over them, again shutting down avenues of access.

What was worse was that they could see this happening all over the globe, so many small, disenfranchised nations, suffering under a minority rule, all of them ripe for Caretaker intervention. The USSR, Europe, and the US scrambled, they needed to send out overtures of friendship now, secure a military presence and deny the Caretakers. If the developing world changed without them, where would they sell their goods?

They had to be on the up and up as well, otherwise the nations would just turn to the Caretakers, a frustrating moment. They couldn't just exploit them as they had been doing for centuries.

A moment of anger there. Damn NOD.

p

After Activation 1143 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1104 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 116-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1970 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

7 years. It had been 7 years since NOD had appeared in the world. A world that was still unable to cope with their presence.

Now it was falling onto a new president to lead the United States of America into the future, one where an uncertain enemy was being arrayed against them, one that demonstrated an ability to strike deep into the heart of American soil, bypassing any and all of their defences, hitting them where they were vulnerable before leaving again, as if nothing had happened. A force that cared not that they were a global superpower, one that possessed an army of highly trained soldiers, some of the most advanced vehicles and weapons in the world, and nuclear weapons

NOD cared not, and the new president of the United States of America was going to have to "deal" with them. The previous 2 had been ineffectual, after the hell that was Vietnam for the American army, had lost their presidencies over the issue of Vietnam.

It was a meatgrinder.

To date, there had been over 150, 000 American servicemen lost in Vietnam, the Caretaker led Vietnamese militia tearing apart the world's most highly advanced military. Armed with Manpads, or rather individual portable surface to air missiles, the militia with their unknown designs managed to destroy all manner of aircraft except their most high flying ones. Their B-52 bombers being torn apart, quite literally as the explosions would see them fragment in the sky, the Phantoms, the Hueys, any and all air vehicles being destroyed the second they entered the field.

The same applied unfortunately to their ground vehicles, the aluminium hulled Sheridans destroyed by the prolific RPG-7s, the Bulldogs, the M113s all facing the same issues. The enemy was not the enemy they had been expecting to face. Rather they were highly trained, very well equipped and in possession of equipment that should not even exist. They had counter-battery systems that triangulated their own artillery after a mere 2 salvos, their Manpads displaying better abilities than even the best Russian or even American system, their body armour being of a make that resisted the new 5.56mm rifle bullets, making them impervious to harm unless within 30 meters.

Their advantages in the air war, the armoured war, and the artillery war being nullified, leaving their untrained and unprepared foot soldiers to face an enemy infantry force head on. A match up that left them without all of their advantages, leaving them with their inadequacies.

In short, the Americans for the first time, in a long time had been outgunned, the Caretaker led militias forcing them all the way back to Saigon and the peninsula behind it. There they established a DMZ, an insult to the Americans since it was a copy of the same one they had placed following the Korean War.

On the side of the North Vietnamese, their demise had been even swifter. A decapitating strike against their leadership with an intensive hearts and minds campaign, dropping hundreds of thousands of tonnes of foodstuffs, clothing, amenities and even appliances into the country. It had done much to endear the Caretakers to the people, especially with their promises to treat the country like Rhodesia and allow them to elect their own leaders, to steer their own course on the turbulent swells of destiny.

Rhodesia of course, was a rather strange example, it having gone on to invade South Africa under the leadership of Johann Flash, former Farmer turned President, before turning their gaze north and conquering 2/3s of the African subcontinent. If they were to continue their efforts, they would have the entire thing done in another 3 years maximum, the training the Caretakers had brutally left on the Rhodesian military being dished out with great joy onto the other militaries. When it was done, their entire military, hundreds of thousands strong would be just as good as the Rhodesians before them, each a capable soldier not out of place in any other modern military.

Still, all of this, China, Iran, South America, the economic instability over in Western Europe, news of a resurgent USSR, all of it served to unnerve the American people and in their time of need, they had elected someone they thought would serve them best.

A man by the name of Andrew Machannus, a black man, a very big, very broad, very intimidating man who spoke with the words that massaged themselves into the brain. He had a very convincing voice, and when it came down to it, he knew what it was that had to be offered, an America that was strong, that was not beholden to the rest of the world, that was not trying to be the world police, but rather an America that looked to itself, that developed itself, that didn't go out looking for fights, for wars, but stayed home and cultivated its people.

A return one might say to the isolationist America of old, but it was an America that voters could get behind, the fatigue they had felt from seeing so many of their own killed, hammering their faces against a superior force, to see so many countries fall to civil unrest, a piece of knowledge that dug its way into the mind and hibernated there, waiting, just waiting.

So many things outside, so much trouble. The voters just wanted to close the doors and wait it out, peek out the windows every now and again, call a few friends. Just wait it out. Why were they out there in the first place? They didn't need to play world police.

Machannus had been preceded by a senate that was a tenth filled with blacks, all of them being veterans of Vietnam. Most of them had the looks in their eyes that spoke of great loss, of sacrifices that nobody would ever know about unless they were in the same unit. As Andrews Machannus walked up to give his opening address he set his face into that of a serious mask, one that showed he was taking this seriously, that it was not for his amusement that he was here.

It was still quite funny to him of course, seeing this many black people inside of the executive branch of government. It was not long before where they were second class citizens, not even given the right to vote, yet here they were, in number, in force. The veterans of Vietnam had demanded equality or they would depose the government itself and install one that was actually American. It was done when over 70% of the armed forces agreed with that statement, coming out on the streets with their weapons raised up. Following that, the black population, agitated by people such as Martin Luthor King, began to vote in high numbers, reinforced by the very real fear that they would once again be relegated to second class if they didn't.

And now they had a black president, one that was very willing to stand up for them, for the whole of America. So long as they voted, things were going to change, and it would be for the better. Always for the better.

Machannus stepped up onto the podium and looked out over the assembled crowd. Smiling, he began.

And so began the great turtling of America, maintaining its links with the world, but not actively seeking conflicts. Regular convoys of ships to Japan allowed for trade to flow between the two nations, one that had a wealth of innovation just waiting to be unlocked, the other hungry for new ideas. South Vietnam, or rather what was left of South Vietnam was a rather pathetic little piece of land all the way at the bottom of Vietnam. There had been a DMZ put in place, and the now "Vietnamese Republic", took the rest of the country.

They had their elections not a year earlier, with another farmer becoming the President, apparently, farmers were considered more useful that city folk, who knew.

What was more important was American design.

With the technology that they had recovered from the NOD saboteurs that had been killed, America had at last managed to work out a manner in which they could produce them in bulk, bulk for their weapons and general civilian use as well.

In fact, the weapons were secondary at this point, the research teams spending a decade on deciphering the technology, how to compose the alloys, how to make it actually work the way they wanted it to. So much that they had to do, so much that they had done.

Wilson's team had spent years on the systems. Many many years trying to get it all working, designing their dream tank then compromising on it as problems or limitations came up. It had been denied again and again for its impractical nature and the fact that US tank doctrine still worked on the idea of a Heavy, Medium, Light idea.

After the first battles of Vietnam that idea went out the window, a unified "Main Battle Tank" was necessary and Wilson was at the forefront of it. Lighter than a 100 tonne heavy tank, heavier than a 50 tonne medium tank, the M1 Abrams would be a Main Battle Tank. Made possible by the alloys "gifted" by NOD, it was a monster of engineering. Capable of 50 kilometers an hour on road and 40 off, it had a 120mm main, smooth bore gun and a targeting computer that would have powered the moon landings on its own.

The computers themselves were marvels of engineering, the result of what was the discovery of "micro transistors" on some of the NOD hardware. The means to miniaturize computer systems, a revolution in other words. With this ability, they could very well build targeting computers at a fraction the size of those still using the old methods.

In the civilian market, it went even further, creating a new industry of personal computers and what would be known as the "internet". A means by which to link the world over the power grid or something, all the old timers knew was that it allowed for them to communicate with each other without needing phones and with text and images. It was amazing.

But the Abrams was not enough. In Vietnam, there had been limited numbers deployed towards the end of the war and they had been destroyed by the overwhelming firepower used by the Caretaker led militias.

It was not without its good points, however, the lower design meant it attracted less fire its heavy bore main gun was able to strike out at targets several kilometers away, and its armour was enough to save it from at least 4 times the damage that an equivalent M48 Bulldog would have taken.

It was an adequate tank.

It would not serve as America's main tank. No, there had been a split in the team following the Abram's failure to achieve the breakthrough that the American military so desperately needed in Vietnam. It was a good tank, but it had arrived too late and in too limited numbers. And to that, the team split, one still entrenched in the mindset that a big, all rounder was what America needed, and the second of the mindset that a lighter, faster tank with the same gun was what was needed.

One team developed the Acolyte tank, a masterpiece of engineering, able to be dropped from aircraft, fast enough to keep up with light mechanized units and with enough firepower to hold its own against the main armour elements of any opposing force.

The team still under Wilson went on to develop the Crusader tank, a piece of engineering that was at once mad and brilliant. Instead of the standard 2 track design, this used 4, all working together to drive the tank. But this was not the mad part, rather what was made was that underneath the tank were turbines, much like that of a hovecraft, which when engaged would allow the tank to hover on the ground and travel at over 30kms/h, over water and land. A very delicate system that needed a dedicated maintenance crew and intensive energy consumption, but it was something the Marines loved. Being able to attack over any terrain onto any beachhead? Yes, please.

The army itself was more reluctant but when it's worth was proven in the field trials, it was given an ok.

America was arming itself, it was said to be turtling, which was true. It was also true that it was preparing for war, to get revenge on NOD and prove once again it was the strongest.

After Activation 1143 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1104 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 116-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1975 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

Russia was preparing itself. 10 years now, 10 years it had been preparing for what was about to come. An offensive on NOD.

The new USSR, one that had welded together the many satellite and member states was one so very different from its past, that of a weak and inferior force, using numbers to supplement its lack of quality. The new USSR still had those numbers, but now exercised them more efficiently, more effectively.

They faced a future that was uncertain, a world that was hostile to them. China, what may have been a close ally had turned away, their focus now on Capitalism and not Communism, of trying to secure wealth for their country that it might import what it needed to grow.

The USSR saw and understood, not all could be as great as the USSR was.

Still, it did leave them alone in a world that was very much unwilling to even so much as look in their general direction, a world more ready to wage war upon them than to actually lend a hand if needed. It was not unwarranted, their isolationism, their rabid anti-outsider mentality, their foolishness when it came down to it, had denied them the world. But was it truly their fault?

The USSR in its burgeoning years was a land where the peasant met the worker, where the 14th century smashed straight into the 20th century. Where the local peasant mentality drove the insanity that was the purges in the rural areas during Stalin's reign. Where the peasant was one step away from the intelligentsia. It was only now that things had begun to calm down and now that the people were receptive to change.

It was helped by their bloodsoaked past, one where the old were killed for being economic burdens during the Great Famines, leaving the young and the impressionable behind. The young that were theirs to mold as they saw fit. And so they had, taking the foundation left behind by the brutality of the past, wiping away the facade that had been built, and building a new USSR on the clean slate. It had taken years, and it was still ongoing, but the process was firmly underway, the USSR was ready for the world.

Now they needed the world to once again be ready for the USSR, and they needed to look beyond Russia's borders, for there was an entire world ready for the taking. They had received word that the US was turtling itself, nobody was fooled. It was merely biding time in which it could grow stronger. Russia unlike the US, had not foolishly rushed into a war with the NOD backed militia group, later known as the Vietnamese Army. Their entire society had nearly collapsed over it, a foolish decision to engage.

The USSR's stake in it had ended before it even really began, the weapons they transported south to the North Vietnamese Army ending abruptly when the North Vietnamese Army ceased to exist a few weeks into the war.

The USSR had not spent the years in isolation still, it had modernized itself, had strived to make its peoples happy, that they might work harder, better. It had spent the time building factories, of exploiting the natural resources available to it, in order that the USSR not be weak to outside imports and cultural weapons. A peasant peoples that discovered artifacts of modernity, were a vulnerable people. It was better to indoctrinate them to Soviet goods before they found Western goods.

It had been akin to Stalin's 5 year plans, only these had worked, the goals realistic, the people looked after. Helped of course by the suffering undertaken previously. No longer was it necessary to repress an entire society, they were modernized enough to make the transition much more painless than before.

And oh how it had worked. What was a crumbling powerhouse in the 1960s was once again something to be reckoned with. Its people mobilized to a singular goal, that of prosperity for themselves and their communities. While the Eastern German and Polish areas were… indignant, wanting to be separate, it was not possible at this time. They represented bridges into Europe for the advancement of the Red Army. They would see the benefits of being in the USSR, in time perhaps.

On the militaristic side of things, they had not been idle. The T-90 had been developed, an upgrade over the T-55 and the T-72 in every way. The new technology and materials found from failed NOD raids proving invaluable in developing the beast. Able to match up to the Abrams tank, their secret reports on the vehicle raising eyebrows over how the Americans managed such a feat. Firepower and Armour over all it appeared, speed secondary. It was vastly different from their own mentality when it came to developing weapons and the Soviet designers were eager to see how their own charges faced up in the field.

Of course, they were sure that the Americans were not solely focused on the Abrams, lessons were learnt and needs must, instead they were very sure that there would be advancements in tank design, to make up for the flaws in their design. It would be something new, something imaginative, something to capture the imagination and remind them why they were making tanks to begin with.

This could not stand, if they were making tanks, then so too needed the Russians, they too would make tanks, the greatest tanks the world had ever seen.

It would take the auto-loading systems of the T-90, upgrade them and make them entirely separate entirely. They would take the speed of the T-90 and make it more so, they would take the modular armour plating of the T-90's Explosive Reaction Armour or ERA and place that there too. So many little things to be improved on and so many big things as well.

The entire tank for one became modular, why have 20 designs for every different kind of vehicle when you could use the 1 chassis? Replacing the BMP, BTR, Tank, mobile platform roles, all of to be using the same chassis for ease of production, maintenance, and design.

It would be an engineering marvel, the engine block at the front for it to have further survivability, the crew compartment in the rear, the turret module being sealed off, so that in the case of a turret hit, it could be ejected and save the lives of the crew themselves.

It was dubbed the T-14 Armata Platform and it would begin trials very soon. While it may not have the armour that the American tanks had, they were very confident that it had the maneuverability to trump that of their designs.

Maybe sometime in the very near future, they would have a match to decide how things would go. Maybe.

The Yom Kippur War had occurred later than scheduled, mainly due to the interference of the Caretakers in Iran, but it had gone off anyway. Something to do with geo-politics and checking Israel or something equally as nebulous. Regardless, Syria and Egypt attacked, stuff happened.

What was more important was that OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) or rather OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) led by Saudi Arabia called for oil embargoes on the United States and anyone else who was supplying arms to Israel.

In the canon timeline this would have gone on unchallenged, largely due to the corruption of the government and the power that lobbyists held within the US government. In the current timeline where NOD had coincidently wiped out every dynasty in the US, leaving it leaderless for a few years, corruption was much less widespread, much less powerful. So much so that when OAPEC called their embargo and dared the world to challenge them, the US accepted.

Immediate deployment of their armies and navies begun with thousands of troops being sent out to deal with the "idiot arabs". Of course, the fact that Israel had drawn them into this was something that was going to have to be dealt with sooner or later. The US was isolationist, but it needed to respond to attacks on its image and its ability to control both itself and its citizens. When an enemy threatened that, was when things needed to be handled… with prejudice. To protect the hibernating bear, the bear must demonstrate extreme power and ferocity so that all know to steer away from it.

And so, in the year of 1975, not 5 years after the newly inaugurated President of the United States of America called for a return to and a focus on "America", the war drums began to beat once again. To protect their right to isolationism, they must first demonstrate a willingness to challenge those that might seek to destroy their way of life.

The war machines were preparing their march and the Crusader and Acolyte tanks were being loaded onto the ships that would see them delivered into the heart of Saudi Arabia. At the same time the Air Force was preparing for an air-drop operation of the likes that had not been seen since D-Day, deploying tens of thousands of men directly into key parts of the country, crushing all opposition and demonstrating to the world exactly why it was that the US while preferring the door shut, was still a ferocious predator that was not to be disturbed.

South America however, felt that its own sovereignty was being challenged by this, a few of its own nations (or rather, just Venezuela) was part of OPEC. They were willing to let this slide for now, but the fact of the matter was that tensions were beginning to rise between the US and their Southern neighbor. The same could be said for those further out in Africa, the fear being that the US would once again begin its colonialist ways and expand out into the world, exploiting the resources of those in its path the entire time. While they did have outdated equipment, usually surplus Russian equipment that was approaching 10 years old at this point, they did have a highly trained and highly motivated military.

The USSR was looking on with interest, things were heating up and if this devolved into a proxy war, they were waiting to see who to back. Delivering a few "stolen" tanks into the hands of the defenders would mean that they could very effectively gauge just how effective their own designs were against that of the new American tanks. NOD had of course stolen the designs at some point, but for everyone else it was still a mystery, the development hidden behind 10 kinds of classified. This little war would be the first that the world would see of the new tanks, weapons and designs, and they were looking on with bated anticipation.

China in the meantime was keeping to itself for the time being. The death of Mao Zedong had led to widespread reforms of China both in its domestic policy and its foreign policy. They were very much of the idea that China needed to rapidly grow in order to match up to the rest of the world. If they wanted their voices heard on the world stage, they first needed to prove that they were worthy of being there.

It would be a struggle no doubt, but the world was proving to be a very big one and one that was willing to buy the excess of food that China was producing. In fact, China was using its grains to trade directly for more advanced equipment, bargaining directly in order to receive what it needed. China would modernize even if it was hand over fist, there was no convenient and filthy corporations, ready to sell out the American worker to provide a massive market for China, not in this timeline.

They were going to have to do things the hard way, but at least they were given a headstart this time around, what with Mao not shattering their academic classes and forcing them out of the country, as well as maintaining a somewhat cohesive country that wasn't reeling from tens of thousands of stupid students thinking they knew how to run the country. Yes, China had things much better this time around.

As for the rest of the world, they were watching and waiting. The US had shown that it was not willing to take threats to its sovereignty lightly and that it had not spent the last 5 years quietly tucked away. They had their weapons now, their new vehicles ready to head out and challenge the any who might not understand that isolationist did not mean weak.

At the same time… well, things needed to change in order for the world to survive what was coming. That and well… wars always did promote technological development and growth. Just a few nudges here and there, maybe signposting and they would be developing just as NOD wanted them to. For NOD's part, they were preparing for World War 4, the one that came right after, the one where NOD would challenge the entire world and force them to adapt or perish.

The Scrin were coming and they were not willing to wait for a technologically inferior race to grow up before they defeated them, no, humanity needed to be ready before 2050 when the Scrin arrived in force. In 2030 Tiberium would make its way to the Earth itself, a mere 20 years to learn how to adapt and use the mineral. If they wanted mankind to adapt, then there was going to be a lot of war.

Africa had unified and they were now quite content to sit and consolidate their holdings. Soon Hydra would do a few tactical assassinations and the local cells would replace them with what was needed. Peace was a laudable goal, it really was.

It was just right now, peace would only get mankind wiped out when it came to war. If they had to wage war on what must be an innocent peoples, then so be it. It was not as if they really cared, Hydra ensured that NOD's goals were carried out, nothing more, nothing less.

The Europe problem had been an issue that Hydra had to dance quite eloquently to solve. The problem of the old colonial holdings which were filled to the brim with sycophants and the corrupt, had begged their old colonial masters to save them. Hydra had failed to see that coming, an amateur mistake on their part, one that would not be repeated again.

A rapid response was needed and their leader, Hannah came up with a plan to be implemented immediately. It was a 3 pronged one, first would be reports that were filled with the Soviet Union's increasing militarization and an eye to expand out to the West.

Half of it was a fabrication of course, the Soviets had no desire to expand, but their increasing militarization certainly was not. It would be an anonymous report, one that came from their "spies" which NOD had replaced a long time ago with their own plants. With multiple reports, each unveiling a tiny part of the overall plan, the EU high command would be able to see the big picture once they were assembled, one that showed a massive retooling of their industry as they spoke.

It would terrify them of course, especially since the US had cut much of NATO's funding, leaving Europe very much isolated and afraid. They had long since emptied their minerals, their mines, leaving them with a need to import much of what they needed, Europe long transiting into a service economy and one that relied on its ability to manufacture high quality goods.

An alliance would be necessary, likely with Australia or the nascent South American Federation to secure their iron supplies. Something that was going to be difficult since the EU had forbidden the UK from giving preferential treatment to its Empirical holdings when it came to trade. Something that was going to have to be solved in one way or the other, they could no longer afford to keep things Euro-centric. The world was knocking, Africa was a problem and the USSR was looming large.

Western Europe was very much isolated, and they were very much afraid.

The second prong of the strike would be plain old assassinations. Standard, boring, but very effective. Remove from power those that would call for the attacks on the nascent Republic of Africa, have them replaced with those that were very much willing to just wait and go for a policy of isolationism. They did not need to intervene and it was high time that Europe left AFrica to its own devices.

The assassination of the leadership begging for European intervention would be the obvious next step. Removing them would do much to silence European desires to lead an expedition outwards. It was not as if they were very good at identifying one African from another.

The third and final prong was civilian agitation. With the reduced monetary aid from the US, the countries of Europe were very much in need of a quick infusion of cash in order to rebuild following the Second World War, as well as build up their militaries in response to the USSR and the possible African threat. Due to this the civilian amenities and what they had taken for granted, the pseudo socialism that they were living in was being threatened.

Riots, civil unrest, and more would keep the leaders of the EU looking inwards, domestically where their gazes would not be able to stop the Republic of Africa from uniting and becoming a world power.

It was going to need to be carried out over a period of years, the first and second prongs immediately, but the third would have to wait. Civil unrest needed a seed to germinate and currently there were no seeds of which NOD would be able to exploit to the extent that they desired.

089 and 071 stood inside the elevator heading upwards from the base floor of the European Continental Alliance's headquarters. They were on their way to meet the general staff, as in the literal generals that were on the staff. Coming from the USSR (allegedly), they had invoked the Raven Protocol, one which saw them ushered into the ECA as soon as they landed in Berlin.

It was there that they verified themselves with an ancient code phrase that only those in the highest positions of the European spy agencies knew, "The Junkers are…" Answered with the phrase, "Supports and obstacles."

More verifications were to follow naturally, but they were more standard than necessary at that point, only 12 people in the ECA knew what that pass phrase, 3 of which were in the same room. 089 and 071 had gene therapy at the behest of Hannah so that they would be able to impersonate the agents they were playing as more effectively. That and spending literal years studying them in order to get all of their little cues down properly in order that they were even able to fool the agents' own families.

089 for example had trained himself to emulate a little fidgeting action with his left knee, the same as the agent had originally. The right hand would always move the ring finger to the middle finger then back to the pinky in a piano playing motion whenever he was forced to sit still for longer than 3 minutes. A tic in the left eye at the sound of a guitar, a jerk when he heard a violin. The small things that one might forget and blow their cover, but so easy to forget.

Torture had seen them betray everything in their memories, all the more material in which to verify themselves to the close associates of the former spies, now corpses. Everything from their favourite foods, to on exactly which date the two men had masturbated for the first time had been included.

And so it was that they were here now, their arms full of what promised to be very detailed and dangerous information, straight from the USSR itself. Important enough that they had to activate the Raven Protocol.

Stepping into the room, 089 and 071 brought out the briefcases they had brought with them (cleared of explosives of course), and laid them out on the table.

"Gentlemen, what we are about to show you is critical to the future of Europe, please prepare yourselves before viewing these documents." Said 089. 071's nod of agreement was met by a chorus of "I understand," from the assembled generals.

He took out the first sheet of paper. This was going to be a while.

Then when they were done, the next Hydra operatives would be coming in with their reports.

Hannah spun the Karambit in her hand. It was a new knife, one that had yet to be… tempered. She had picked it up from a show not far from where she was standing, a small stall in the open air market of Italy's Rome being her location. She had enjoyed her time here, joining in with the festivities as the population celebrated an EU meeting of what to do regarding the issue of the USSR.

Her assassination of the members of this conference was going to focus the attention to the Soviets, a means to kill two birds with a single stone. After all, most of the members of this conference were also those that were advocating armed intervention into Africa. Hannah grinned, she really did love it when things went her way. There was nothing quite like being able to do all she wanted and come out the other side on top.

The Karambit's little ring at the bottom of the handle was a delight that Hannah took great joy in using for all sorts of tricks.

"Miss Miss!" Oh, what was this? A small child. How precious.

"Yes?" She said, grinning down at the boy.

"Could you teach me how to do that?" He asked, his chubby little face beaming at her.

"Of course, I am the best knife master in the world you know." She said, grinning even wider at the boy.

She had nothing else to do for a few hours as the conference filled up, she might as well have some fun while she was waiting.

Hannah hummed as she walked, her hands filled with a K-Bar this time. The boy had proven to be a very apt student, learning all she taught with the absorbent quality of a desert dried sponge.

He was still trying out the little trick where it went in and around the fingers with her Karambit as she left, she liked her knives and she liked killing, sure. She was also smart, smart enough to realise the pain that Katrin would bring to her if she found out that Hannah killed a child. Something that was very likely considering that they were a trio and mentally melded on a constant basis.

Now then, to kill legislators, kill their guards, die to the police and spread the story of her ability to rise from the dead far and wide. How… delicious.

Hannah spun around, her knife going through another neck, stabbing deep into another's eye socket, up into the gut, pulling his entrails out. Yup, the guards to the room were now dead. Time to make sure that there wouldn't be any escapees.

"Get ready." She said into her throat mic. It being connected to the multiple Hydra agents in the building, each one dressed as a guard, all the better to keep the legislators inside the auditorium while she did her work, while keeping the curious out.

She would have to work fast however, screams tended to penetrate through wood which made the whole "stab and kill everyone" thing much more difficult when the real guards came running, often with reinforcements using assault rifles and explosives.

Now then, should she start from the left or the right? Or maybe she should divide them down the middle and work her way in a zig zag? Choices choices. Hmmmm.

"How should I kill them?" She asked the Hydra agent closest to her, one that was trying to mop up the blood she had left on the floor. Woops.

"Top to bottom." He said, looking up at her briefly before returning to his work. One that was doomed to failure, that was carpet and carpet refused to give up its spoils of war.

"Good decision." She said, turning back to the doors of the auditorium. These were located behind the ones at the very top of the room, towards the backs of the everyone in the room.

Hannah grinned. This would be fun, maybe she should make a game of it, see how many she could kill before they realised something was happening.

Phase 3 or rather the third prong of the plan was finally underway. They would be agitating the public and creating riots to cause civil unrest and scare the politicians in the major cities to the North of Europe, the cities that were the heartlands of industrial output so vital to the EU.

It had been a rather easy infiltration really, it was not as if the various anti-governmental factions were very good at checking who it was that was joining them. Simply joining one in enough numbers, voting in new leaders and then assuming control of the group through the majority worked most of the time.

From there it was a simple matter of finding a subject that large numbers of people identified with and creating an artificial moment of outrage. Time it right and pay enough "agitators", they would be joined by the real crowd, after which they would fade away and leave the public in charge of it.

While it would generally fade away given enough time, it was enough to scare the politicians into reacting, and more importantly diverting media attention away from Africa, something that was becoming increasingly important as the years passed.

Soon they could stop, the next phase of the global plan was beginning soon.

After Activation 1143 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1104 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 116-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1975 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

Captain Jeremiah Bradley of the 8th Armoured Corp buckled himself down tight inside of his Acolyte tank. The thing was rated for aerial drops and indeed it was a mere 22 tonnes. "Mere 22 tonnes" sounded ridiculous but there it was, compared to the 63 tonne Abrams, it wasn't bad at all. Only at 22 tonnes, if something went wrong… well, they were going to be going straight into the ground at terminal velocity and crumpling like a can of soft drink under a boot. With them still inside of it. Which in turn meant that they were going to be turned into paste, a delicacy no doubt somewhere in the galaxy but severely unpleasant for them.

No, it was best to avoid that for the time being, avoid that at all costs lest they wish to end up as the very same paste mentioned. Only that meant trusting the load operators to do their jobs properly, hoping that they were going to be securing things, tying things down, basically doing their jobs. Something that load operators were not known to do on occasion. The problem of course, being that if it failed, they were going to die as well, whereas if it was a humvee or something of the like, it would just be scrapped and they could move on.

Jeremiah gave a mental shudder at the thought of what was waiting on the other side. Still, he had a job to do, 90mm death, fast response and speedy flank security, that was the Acolyte. Sure they had thin ass armour, but that was what the speed was for. Sure their main gun was a dinky little thing compared to the 120mm on the Abrams and the Crusader, but it was still rated to penetrate anything that they Saudi's were using, so that was fine at least.

In the event that they were sent out against the Russian, then just aiming for the sides and the rear was their job, or to close in to 200 meters and engage from the front. Dangerous either way.

Then again, it wasn't their job to be doing that kind of work, most tank deaths in World War 2 were at the hands of anti-tank guns, manned emplacements that took down the tanks instead of the tank on tank battles glamorized in the media. That and most tank deaths were at the hands of infantry in Vietnam, a different kettle of fish, true but the lesson remained. Infantry support was their role in this if they weren't acting as a fast moving screen for the main force that was also rather… slow… all things considered.

If one wanted speed, and also to ride a tank, the Acolyte was the way to go, even if it was a bit of a pain in the ass to get to a battlefield in the first place. Whoever thought that jumping out of aircraft in a tank was a good idea really did need a bullet to the back of the head, maybe several.

Jeremiah mumbled under his breath further, he really did hate that he was expected to drop out of aircraft, heights had always been a fear. He joined the tank corps since tanks weren't meant to fly, if anything they were the opposite of flying, always falling at worst, hugging the ground at best. The perfect branch of the army to join when he had signed up.

Unfortunately, he was reassigned to the Acolyte tank once the Abrams program was converted to domestic use only, America needed faster and more agile vehicles in its expeditions out into the world. What this meant for poor Jeremiah was that he was not a tank commander of a tank that was meant to fly, and frequently, his application to transfer to a Crusader denied.

They would be dropping out of a cargo hauler, deep into the depths of the Saudi state, securing the oil platforms to prevent the Saudis from detonating out of a desperation or spite, or whatever it was the Saudi's did. They were all backward ass tribesmen that somehow became super rich because of the land they owned, who cared about them.

What was more important was the Saudi military (lol), which had a few bulldogs and the like that the US had sold them at some point. No real problem really, but something to consider. It wouldn't exactly be difficult to go up against them, but at the very least it would cause them to slow down a little.

The blare of the alarm filled the tank. Looks like it was time. What fun.

The alarm rang out, once. Twice. Thrice. A rush as Captain Bradley was pushed back into his seat by the acceleration of the pod and he gave a fierce grin. As much as he hated the fall, the rush just before it was always something that brought out the primitive in him.

Down. Down it went.

"The chute's not deploying sir, we're in freefall!"

"What about the reserve?"

"Negative, it's jammed."

"Fuck. The manual?"

"Pulling and nothing is happening sir."

"Well, fuck. Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure, the week I have spent with you. I will see you on the other side."

3 minutes of dropping, a strange sort of peace as they hit terminal velocity, the tank dropping down almost nose forward. Jeremiah took a moment to close his eyes and give a brief prayer, maybe he would even get his name in the history books, first death in an Acolyte tank due to failed rigging.

A crack, the sound of metal crumpling, then nothing. Only darkness.

A jerk, a thump, and Jeremiah looked around himself. No longer falling, no longer feeling like your stomach was being pressed against your ribs. Was this land? A quick check out the cupola's vision slits aaaaand yes. This was land. Fuck yes, he was alive.

"Autobots roll out!" He rumbled. Time to go fuck up some Saudis that had made him drop out of a plane in the first place. Then he was going to go and cry gently in a corner after the adrenaline wore off. Fucking planes. Fucking flying tanks.

The subjugation of the Saudi Arabia, the exiling of the entire royal family and the confiscation of all their personal wealth was done in a matter of days, the entire country falling underneath the sway of the US. Their troops patrolled its interior, keeping the oil safe and pumping, the other OAPEC nations quickly caving after they realised that the US was indeed being serious. Trying to impinge on a US that was seeking to avenge itself on Vietnam, was perhaps a very bad idea and the Saudi's had made a very stupid mistake when they tried to test exactly how far the US was willing to go.

The world itself was in two minds about the situation. On one hand, the US did just go and use their power to force the subjugation of an entire peoples with overwhelming military force when they tried to enforce economic sanctions on the US itself. At the same time, OAPEC threatened all of them, trying to limit the production of oil over political fears, truly a foolish thought and thankfully America had put them in their place. No doubt the people in Saudi Arabia were thinking less savory things, but who cared what they thought, they had picked a fight with America to begin with.

NOD would be taking a hand in Saudi Arabia once things cooled down a bit, maybe make it so they weren't completely useless by the time the Scrin came. If they were… well, they would just be used as meatshields, it wasn't like Earth was lacking in population.

In the matters pertaining to Israel, well it came to light that some Senators with their evangelical mindset and insanity, believed that Israel needed to exist in order for judgment day to occur. As in, they believed that Jesus would strike down Israel then uplift the rest of humanity or something equally as stupid. At the same time, the Israeli Lobbyists had somehow "ducked" under the purging by NOD and still operated, paying obscene amounts of cash to bribe legislators and senators to selling weapons and giving aid.

Unfortunately for all of them, President Andrew Machannus took a very dim view to traitors, those that would sell American lives to a foreign entity for some cash. All of them were executed, their trials broadcast over public television for the world to see. There would be no "helping" Israel from this point forward, no trying to secure the middle east. They had what they wanted, now they wanted to be left alone.

This stance did wonders for his position with the rest of the world, them seeing that the US was indeed honouring its stance and harshly persecuting those that might try and force them out of it. The Israeli lobbies in Europe where they were still strong, tried to levy anti-semitic charges against the US, but they merely brushed them off. The USA did not have time for a tiny little nation that had made enemies of everyone in the region and would die soon anyway. Maybe next time they would try and settle somewhere that didn't have every other person in it hate them, and maybe displacing all those people that would go on to attack them as terrorists was a bad idea.

Food for thought perhaps.

Besides, the US no longer needed Israel as a stabilizing factor or as an ally in the Middle East anymore. The US was very much focusing on itself now, not spending a crazy amount of money in a vast measure of continued money printing, only stabilized by the fact that they were exporting large numbers of goods to a Europe recovering from World War 2, as well as setting demand for the US via the Petrodollar, thus keeping inflation stable. No, the US wasn't doing that anymore, it was unstable, foolish and would do nothing but jeopardize their descendants as they lived with debt that would likely be in the trillions.

The Federal reserve had been purged by NOD, the entire thing being a very quiet and hush hush affair. The Federal Reserve after all was a private entity that owned the ability to print the money for the American peoples, despite the fact the government had no control over how it worked. Something to scratch heads over.

Regardless, President Machannus very quickly sent in soldiers to take over everything, America would once again be under the control of Americans and damn the rest of the world. They would no longer be vulnerable to outside attacks, no longer weak due to internal traitors, a country that was strong, ready to face the future.

It was unfortunate therefore that so was the rest of the world. The South American Federation had been making quiet and very discrete pokes into the idea that Mexico should be returned in its entirety to the peoples of South America, The fact that the US had via Texas taken it over before Texas was then absorbed into the US raised questions as to the legitimacy of the treaty signed. That and the unwarranted aggression at the turn of the century which saw the US invading Mexico and annexing land.

Things that were very much on the minds of the South American Federation. What made them confident enough to challenge the US in the first place was the support that the USSR was giving them in the form of new vehicles and weapons with which they could then "test" against the Americans. The nature of the terrain in South America making it more difficult for them to bring their armoured divisions to bear in full against the South American armies. It was a different situation the further west or east one went, but the beachhead that was Mexico was very much ready to repel any attacks and force the US forces to concentrate themselves. Something for the new Anti-Tank rockets to be played around with perhaps?

Things were once again heating up in the world and the EU was facing its own worried, to the South, the previous colonial territories were demanding reparations for the crimes against humanity committed while the Europeans had been in charge. They were refused of course but the populations of the African Subcontinent, now called the Republic of Africa were very insistent. So much so that they were threatening war against their previous colonial masters, revenge for past slights and the deaths of countless numbers of their people and their enslavement.

The next few years promised to be very turbulent indeed. It was as if someone was behind the scenes agitating it all… hmmm…

After Activation 1148 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1109 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 121-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1980 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

The world was in the midst of what one might call a "small scale war." Or rather, several small scale wars. While the USSR and China were largely out of it, the USSR sending arms and technical experts to assist in the production of technologies and infrastructure, the kind needed for large scale production of weapons systems. The recipients of this being of course, the Republic of Africa and the South American Federation. Both of these were waging a war or sorts against their northern neighbors, that of the newly formed European Union and the United States of America respectively. Both of them over grievances in the past, one that was admittedly more minor than the other.

Whereas one wanted reparations for the destruction of their culture, the enslavement and death of their peoples over centuries, and the stripping of the natural resources from their country with little to no reparations by the European Union's member states, the other wished for a piece of land to be returned to them at the northern border. Admittedly, if they so wished, they could also go and wage war on Spain and Portugal for forcing them to speak Spanish and Portuguese as well as the killing off of their peoples and their enslavement.

In fact, Europe was really heavily into slaves for a moment there, Africa was too of course but not indentured slavery, that shit was terrible. Even if Europe had taken their hands off Africa and said "you are now free", that didn't excuse the way they had profited off the suffering of the African peoples, the way family and friend were ripped away from each other and sent all over the world, to die toiling away in a field somewhere, their names lost to the sands of time.

No, it did not excuse them and Africa was very much willing to go knocking on the door of Europe to get reparations.

The USSR seeing a chance to weaken an EU that was growing more powerful leapt up and began funnelling weaponry and funds into the Republic of Africa, if they could bleed out the EU and make their peoples weary and tired of war, well that would make the USSR that much more safe.

Things were very much stable in the USSR and they had no need to go out and invade anyone else, everything they had was already inside the country. If they wanted to go out and pick a fight, it would be for reasons pertaining to their economy or a need to unify the peoples, something that was unnecessary due to the reforms that had been undertaken by the USSR. No longer was there a fear of separatists inside the USSR, demanding representation and freedom, their voices silenced by the fact they had food, shelter, comfort.

Satisfy a man's need for shelter, massage his pride, and he is content. He can live without one or the other for a short period of time, but never both.

The USSR recognized this and so with great deliberation, took the chance to become all inclusive, welcoming the member states and forming their own EU-Alike, a Duma/Politburo/Central Committee that worked, like the EU but much more integral as they all spoke the same language. Eastern Germany was always sulking but nobody liked that guy anyway. He and Poland always went off to do their own thing.

As for the South American Federation, they were unlike their African counterparts, acting from a position of cold logic as opposed to passion and emotion. They were testing the limits of exactly how far the US was willing to go, prodding gently in order to both gain a measure of respect from the rest of the world, a means of propelling themselves into the spotlight as it were, as well as potentially gaining an honourable defeat or even a victory that would give them diplomatic credit to spend.

While Africa was gaining the same benefits more as an afterthought, the SAF was doing it with the knowledge that while they may lose a few ten thousand men and women, South America as a whole would be stronger for it.

And so it began, two little wars between 4 factions. The USSR, China, and the South East Asia Bloc were largely absent. The last one more due to the fact that Singapore was trying to block Australia's acceptance into ASEAN, something that would have to be dealt with soon. An isolated Australia, one full of resources was an Australia that could potentially do some very bad things to world balance, what with their immense natural production export capabilities. The South East Asia region had much more to gain with allowing them to sit on the board, rather than wallow in their whiteness and become even more staunchly isolationist.

Steps had been taken to make Australia more accepting, but that step needed to be reciprocated, not blocked by a tiny little man in a tiny city state. Should he seek to continue his rhetoric and blind statements, something permanent would need to be done.

The world was preparing for war now, while the two little flareups had the potential to begin burning even brighter, what was concerning was the silence of the USSR on the issues. They had no way of gauging the reaction of the USSR besides the expected military advisors and industrial advisors who were doing their standard thing whenever a conflict against the US occurred.

If they suddenly waded into the waters, well things would become very very muddy, very quickly, the potential of World War 3 being a very real thing. Even worse was the fact that they all had nuclear weapons, the advances in weapons technology not merely being limited to things like guns and vehicles, but nuclear devices as well. Weapons that could wipe out something as large as New York city were being mounted on a missile that could carry up to 16 of the warheads, each able to being individually targeting. A nightmare when there were enough of the things to wipe out all humans on the planet several times over. Just layering the nukes over each other, that was how many the world had at this point.

It was a rather scary thought in all honesty, that all life could end if something were to go wrong, which why NOD was working behind the scenes on their own nuclear nullifier type weapons. Something to shoot down nuclear weapons would be ideal, but at the same time, it could be said that some kind of jammer that prevented nuclear weapons from working at all would ideal.

Like a Neutron Jammer of some kind.

Something to consider for the future. Right now, they were sitting back to enjoy the results of their actions, the war being a very necessary and rather useful measure that NOD had decided was needed if the world was to advance to the point it needed to be in time for the Scrin.

Social progress was all well and good, but when it came at the cost of having an army and any real ways of defending oneself against the agents that might seek to destroy the world, well something clearly needed to be done to keep everyone safe. Even if that meant being evil. Which they totally were enjoying being actually, something just spoke to you about a group of people sitting around a desk, all over folded fingers, glaring menacingly at random things in the background. It certainly made for an interesting portrait, that was for certain.

They also had some very nice widescreens that were currently displaying images of the conflict that was about to break out in Southern Europe, the Republic of Africa was launching a preemptive strike over the failure of negotiations for reparations, them seeing the Europeans as laughing at them. The European Union therefore, needed a lesson that just because someone was an uneducated backward savage 10 years ago, did not mean they were now.

The Africans had taken their lessons from the Caretakers to heart and were now ready to display the results of their training.

The drones above the city of Athens panned out to see what was going to happen in its full glory.

"Ready?"

"All charges had been set. All response teams are ready."

"Good, it's 1200 hours in 12 minutes, everything is on track. For the Republic of Africa!"

"For the Republic of Africa!"

"For the Republic!"

Willem van der Meer was part of the Dutch military, stationed in Athens due to the rising tensions between the Republic of Africa. For them, however, it was clear that the chances of an actual invasion by the Africans over into Athens was insane, they would have to cross the Mediterranean, over the Sahara, over the states to the South and then secure supply lines while also transporting their soldiers north.

It would be an undertaking of epic proportions, something their army wasn't capable of doing if the latest intelligence reports were correct. The problem of course, being "if".

Then again in Willem's opinion, the Republic of Africa wasn't exactly filled with the ability to transport their units across by sea without first alerting all those satellites the European Military Alliance had put into the air lately. Which of course meant it was very likely they would be going for a standard play, pushing up into Sicily in the South of Italy then North, like the allies tried in World War 2. Which was why the greatest number of anti-ship weapons and the highest concentration of units was around Sicily. If they were denied a sea route, well they would be forced to go by land, making it so much more dangerous for them due to Europe's superior air force.

For Willem, this was a vacation post, somewhere for him to be, to relax and to maybe oggle the local girls a bit. These Greek girls were very… tanned, something he wasn't used to considering he was from the Netherlands, home of the stereotypical pale and blond girls. These curly haired, tanned, dark hair, dark eye girls were something else. Mmmm.

Willem grinned, when his shift was over he would be heading over to the bars just outside of the base, there would no doubt be girls there for him to oggle a bit, have a good time with as it were. Military bases all around the world were the same, the bars outside full of girls trying to pick up a guy with a steady paycheck and looking for companionship for their stay while in the country. So long as he didn't get married, he was going to be fine.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

What was that. Willem turned to the sounds but subconsciously he already knew. The bright light, the way it flared and flickered around his shadow… it was an explosion. One of immense size considering that the shockwave that was buffeting him nearly had him off his feet.

Willem turned and ran forward, his G3 in his hands, if this was an attack he would need to be ready, only something like this? He had done the drills, the most he had ever done being a few practice runs whenever the base Commander felt like it. Only this… this was beyond anything he had ever trained for.

Willem gave a brief moment as he ran to praying that he would get out of this alive, but he wasn't so sure he would. Those explosions had been towards the city, where their Anti-Aircraft missiles had been located, and if those were destroyed… it could only mean one thing, invasion. But there were too many explosions, all over the base. Somebody was attacking. Now that he thought about it, those were too small to be the systems exploding, distraction?

Willem turned the other way, to run to the ocean, their Anti-Ship missiles were there and they had to be protected.

He was just some farm kid, he had joined thinking it would be fun, a way to get paid, meet new people, travel the world, shoot some guns. Not this. As he got closer he could hear the screams. He was right, he hated being right. No, not like this, he wasn't prepared for this.

But he was a soldier and it was his duty.