Earth: Key Events to 2333

As Israel celebrated its 100th anniversary, recent skirmishes on the border with Iran erupted into full scale conflict. Western nations withdrew from the Middle East entirely and the region descended into war.

Service robots now total one billion active machines, servicing all of humanities basic needs and representing 40% of the global workforce. A new living wage payment is introduced across many nations, and semi-retirement is now a way of life for many in the western hemisphere.

The fall of the European Union represented the first true upset to world order since the Chinese economic collapse of 2029. European nations were once again independent, with the smaller ones falling into economic irrelevancy. Only the UK remains active on the world stage. Germany & France retreat into joint isolationism and NATO dies.

The final stage of the Middle East conflict begins, with nuclear fire now exchanged after thirty years of armed conflict. Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia all suffer direct hits. With no appetite for major interventions, neither the USA or European nations offer any meaningful humanitarian assistance and instead isolate the region.

Sea levels continue to rise, forcing mass relocation across Earth. Through fierce competition for basic resources, nations begin to withdraw from global bodies including the United Nations. Russia and China withdraw in 2129, leading both the USA and UK to follow. The United Nations is disbanded in 2130.

The newly formed Russian Asian Confederacy strikes, mounting a full invasion of the Middle East, securing vital rich oil and gas deposits. With no functioning government in the region, there is little direct resistance. The United States threatens full retaliation, but Japan withdraws from all military pacts with its long term allies, and instead vows to remain neutral.

After decades of fracture, the United States, UK and France create the Western Democratic Alliance (WDA) - a full military alliance. Many more smaller European nations join, with only Germany staying resolutely in isolationism, not wanting to aggravate an aggressive Russia.

To combat no access to the natural resources of the Middle East, the WDA finally launch a fleet of solar sails, supplementing their power requirements significantly.

Japan enters into full economic collapse and then civil war in 2239. This chaos spreads to Australia, where chronic food and water shortages have led to the rise of powerful nationalism groups intent on taking direct power. The WDA announces a full aid and rescue package, along with military assistance, if both nations agree to join the alliance. Both nations refuse.

Bringing Ronald Reagan's epic vision of a missile protection system for both the United States and Europe, WDA scientists finalise and activate a comprehensive missile protection system. The Confederacy demands it is immediately removed in the outlying nations near their borders, but this is refused. The countdown to war has begun.

World War Three begins with the invasion of Germany and Poland by Confederacy forces. After only four weeks, only France and the UK remain. Finally on a full war footing, the WDA turns the UK into a fortress island for the remainder of the war. John Redding begins his rise in the UK government. Europe is turned into a wasteland, as after ten years of war the desperate alliances trade nuclear and chemical attacks. Australia is destroyed, and Japan is rendered uninhabitable through chemical attack.

Four years into the new cold war, a wormhole is detected at Mars and immediately both sides race to investigate its existence and more importantly, where it leads.

Global endeavour. RPS assumes total control of the Western Democratic Alliance. John Redding is now the most powerful person in the world. All other information for this time period is classified.

In 2301, September time, Earth suffers its first category nine storm that kills three million people and destroys precious infrastructure. The storm lasts a record four months, and highlights to both the WDA and the Confederacy that the ecological damage to Earth is now extreme. Global food shortages become the norm from 2305 on wards. The UK is evacuated, with the WDA focusing all its power and resources in North America alone now. 

Director John Redding authorises a targeted sterilisation program on South America to control populations that are exploding despite a critical shortage of basic resources across the world. RPS dismantles what is left of the WDA and assumes full control of North America and all global bases.

Extreme global warming and a shrinking resource base force the Confederacy to abandon the Russian mainland and focus all power in China. European regional war lords rise, instigating terror across the region and then globally. Both the WDA and the Confederacy send in special ops teams in a continuing battle against the war lords.

North America has forty force enormous domes created as insulated cities against the harsh environment and weather that is now normal on Earth. Capable of housing sixty million people, the domes are a triumph of human engineering. Only those in vital industries are selected to live in the domes, along with RPS high command.

Project Crusades begins, after twenty years of effort drawing on every last ounce of power and resources available to RPS. John Redding commands Edward Hawk to do whatever it takes to ensure the project is successful.