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Chapter 1: Timeline
2005: The United States, recovering from a depression, decides to rebuild it’s economy. Massive public works projects, employing millions of laid off Americans are started. Various reforms are passed without opposition. Taxes are raised back to pre-2001 levels. Free national healthcare is introduced. The economy begins to function very well, as the budget surplus, the GDP, and wages soar, to the tune of unemployment dropping like a rock in Jupiter’s gravitational field. Thanks to NAFTA, the prosperity is shared by the US’s two largest neighbors, Mexico and Canada. At the same time, Project Cavalier, in conjunction with Project Sherwood II, is initiated. The two are research efforts in the fields of beam weapons and fusion power, respectively.
2006: At this point, after around half a century of intermingling, the US and Canada are more or less culturally homogenous, with the exception of Quebec and the fact that the average IQ is usually higher north of the border. Talks between the Canadian Prime Minister and the American President regarding the possibility of something akin to a European Union begin.
2007: The United States and Canada form the North American Union. Although they do not merge outright, they standardize a new currency, a new collective constitution, and a similar governmental body. A few months later, Mexico decides to hop onto the bandwagon and joins the Union.
2008: In Russia, what is later to be known as the Great Upheaval begins. The government, racked with corruption and strife, simply collapses, as does order. The situation spirals into anarchy and chaos. An army, led by an ambitious general by the name of Boris Nikulin, marches west towards Moscow, with the aim of making Boris Nikulin the leader of a resurrected Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in North America, things are going VERY well indeed, so well, in fact, that the United States decides to assert it’s dominance. There is an international uproar but little action as the NAU gives way to the United States of North America. At this point, since adding all those stars to the flag is getting highly inconvenient, they are replaced by a simple stylized white border of the USNA’s territories. Now, the USNA, feeling expansionistic, simply absorbs Central America, all the way to the Colombian border, everything in the Caribbean, and finally, Greenland. However, the USNA remains a democracy. In the Sherwood II secret testing labs, the prototype FR. 42 reactor creates a self sustaining fusion reaction for the very first time. Work on a new, more compact FR. 50 reactor begins. At the same time, Cavalier is stepped up. The focus is shifted from battlefield beam weapons to a laser based ABM system. Back in Asia, China, taking advantage of Russia’s condition, invades and occupies much of Siberia, just as Nikulin takes the capital of Moscow and proclaims the existence of the Novaya Soyuz--the New Soviet Union.
2009: In Europe, the EU, seeing what is happening in the world around them, decide to do what the Americans have done. They form the Union of Europe, encompassing all of Continental Europe and Asia Minor, with the exception of European Russia. Britain chooses to remain independent. The Sherwood FR. 42 reactor is used for the first time at a power plant on a trial basis. It provides power for several rural farming communities in the American Midwest. Project Hoplite, an effort to develop a battlefield power armor, is initiated. The Cavalier ABM system, powered by three FR. 42 reactors rigged together in a highly haphazard arrangement, enters service trials. It is found to be satisfactory, except for the reactor battery, which is just downright inefficient. As such, work on the FR. 132, basically an overglorified FR. 42, is begun. In Russia, Boris Nikulin drives the Chinese out of Siberia, and comes face to face with the new Siberian republic, a large state with the capital at Vladivostok. The Civil War begins.
2010: FR. 132 is rigged to Cavalier laser system. Proves to be satisfactory. A battery of eight FR. 132 reactors is installed at Vancouver and provides power to a good part of British Columbia on a trial basis. Work on FR. 50, a relatively compact reactor, is finished, while work on the commercial FR. 500 is begun. Prototype M-9 Hoplite Alpha, essentially a US army test type exoskeleton with full armor and a hydrogen powered internal combustion engine, enters trials. First fuel cell powered car enters consumer market. Plans for a nationwide network of fusion plants are begun. China, annoyed with defeat in Siberia, goes south and absorbs a good part of Southeast Asia. Japan, Indonesia, and Australia ally with the USA against the threat of the Chinese, while Boris Nikulin wrests full control over Russia. The Russians, eager to defend themselves against the Chinese, send aid to their neighbors on the Chinese border to form a buffer zone. However, the border is still a scene of many minor skirmishes, some of which turn into downright undeclared wars. It is a hot zone in the purest sense of the word.
2010: A Cavalier ABM system enters field trials when it is deployed at Grand Forks Air Force Base. It proves very effective during both computer simulations and live fire testing. The laser manages to take out most of the incoming RVs. The study concludes that two Cavalier ABM systems operating in conjunction could be almost 100% effective for most nuclear strikes, in heavily targeted areas, five or so would do the trick. Nuclear war begins to look winnable once more…The M9 Hoplite Alpha finishes service trials, the main complaint being the fact that it is unsuited for extended operations. So, the M9 Hoplite Beta enters the planning stage. It is to have a “diaper” system (self explanatory) and extensive internal air-cooling, padding, and the like. The ultimate goal is for the operational vehicle to be ‘something that you could sleep overnight in quite comfortably,’ to quote the official report. Project Sargon begins. It is an effort to apply AI technology to battlefield applications. An M1A3 is retrofitted as a Sargon ATP (Automated Target Persecution) testbed. It is an M1A3 equipped with a Cray optical computer, linked to a sensor battery. It is designed to be capable of operating independently on the battlefield. It does fine in small scale engagements with computer simulations, but an operational, practical system is a long, long way off, as the stupidity of the system indicates. In one particularly funny incident, one of the tanks, pursuing a squad of enemy infantry, runs off of a cliff. Again, an operational system is a long way off. Work on the M1A4, a next-generation M1 Abrams, is begun. Basically, it’s an M1 with advanced battlefield computers on board, as well as a closed-cycle hydrogen combustion engine that recycles it’s own exhaust of water, giving it effectively unlimited range. In the civilian market, fuel cell cars rapidly outpace conventional vehicles, due to rapidly rising gas prices. OPEC’s days are clearly numbered. Uhh…make that decades. No, years…
2011: Hydrogen fuel cell cars now control most of market. OPEC begins panicking. US still takes in sizeable amount of petroleum for plastics, though. M1A4 prototype, basically a butchered M1A3 with a stretch hull, enters trials and performs well. Modification kits distributed to US Army to refit M1A3s. A test FR. 500 goes online in Portland, Oregon, and provides power for most of the region. M9 Hoplite Beta is declared fit for service and enters series production at Baker Industrial’s (the company chosen to manufacture such equipment, by contract) Salt Lake City plant. US army infantry begins training on the limited number of suits available, and a special elite trial battalion is formed to gain experience with the new weapon, as the military is being restructured. Large scale manufacture of FR. 500 reactors is begun. US aims to power country by fusion entirely by the end of FY 2020. RAND Corporation, under a commission from Boeing, performs a study on the subject of asteroid mining, which is found to be ‘feasible in the near, that is, 10-20 year, future.’ In the newly formed Union of New Russian Republics (the Russian in the sense of the region and such) a combat exoskeleton program, codenamed Project 12, is begun. The first suit of the series, known as the 1K01, codenamed ‘Ivan,’ enters the design stage. In the US, General Electronics, basically Microsoft risen from the grave, begins working in cooperation with US on Project Sargon. The Hot Zone between Russia and China goes hot in a very ugly fashion. The whole thing begins when a Chinese reconnaissance platoon wanders off course and falls afoul of a Russian MG squad, and is massacred as a consequence. The local Chinese commander, outraged, sends a platoon across to recover the corpses, but this too is repulsed. The Russians, angry at these incursions and growing suspicious, go on alert. The Chinese misinterpret this, and send an entire company across, at which point things get ugly. A firefight breaks out and the Russian send a raid across the border, attacking Chinese bases and fortifications. A Russian battalion surrounds and falls on a Chinese camp, slaughtering several hundred, as the Chinese and Russian armies attack each other. The whole thing is stopped by the UN, but not before around 3,000 troops total are brutally killed. It is something like the skirmishes between the Soviets and Japanese over 70 years previously. It also foreshadows things to come.
2012: The Japanese and their Australian allies begin to notice the imperialistic rumblings of their unpleasant neighbor, China. A general military buildup, with Japan remilitarizing, begins. The whole union gets extensive aid from the USA. The Japanese, seeing the new American exoskeletons, step up research on industrial models, and in the same year, the Honda Worker, a general purpose industrial ES, enters mass production. It sells quite well, first in Japan, then in the rest of the world where it is introduced two years later. Project Sargon bears fruit with the M1A4—2. The M1A4—2 is an unusual vehicle. It has, for the first time, a respectable AI capability. But it isn’t quite battle worthy, at least not yet. It can still be driven off of cliffs. Around a quarter of the US army is now equipped with exoskeletons, namely, Hoplite Betas. Since practically everything in the Army is fuel cell powered, the US Army needs very little oil.
And so, our story begins...but not until I get feedback!
2005: The United States, recovering from a depression, decides to rebuild it’s economy. Massive public works projects, employing millions of laid off Americans are started. Various reforms are passed without opposition. Taxes are raised back to pre-2001 levels. Free national healthcare is introduced. The economy begins to function very well, as the budget surplus, the GDP, and wages soar, to the tune of unemployment dropping like a rock in Jupiter’s gravitational field. Thanks to NAFTA, the prosperity is shared by the US’s two largest neighbors, Mexico and Canada. At the same time, Project Cavalier, in conjunction with Project Sherwood II, is initiated. The two are research efforts in the fields of beam weapons and fusion power, respectively.
2006: At this point, after around half a century of intermingling, the US and Canada are more or less culturally homogenous, with the exception of Quebec and the fact that the average IQ is usually higher north of the border. Talks between the Canadian Prime Minister and the American President regarding the possibility of something akin to a European Union begin.
2007: The United States and Canada form the North American Union. Although they do not merge outright, they standardize a new currency, a new collective constitution, and a similar governmental body. A few months later, Mexico decides to hop onto the bandwagon and joins the Union.
2008: In Russia, what is later to be known as the Great Upheaval begins. The government, racked with corruption and strife, simply collapses, as does order. The situation spirals into anarchy and chaos. An army, led by an ambitious general by the name of Boris Nikulin, marches west towards Moscow, with the aim of making Boris Nikulin the leader of a resurrected Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in North America, things are going VERY well indeed, so well, in fact, that the United States decides to assert it’s dominance. There is an international uproar but little action as the NAU gives way to the United States of North America. At this point, since adding all those stars to the flag is getting highly inconvenient, they are replaced by a simple stylized white border of the USNA’s territories. Now, the USNA, feeling expansionistic, simply absorbs Central America, all the way to the Colombian border, everything in the Caribbean, and finally, Greenland. However, the USNA remains a democracy. In the Sherwood II secret testing labs, the prototype FR. 42 reactor creates a self sustaining fusion reaction for the very first time. Work on a new, more compact FR. 50 reactor begins. At the same time, Cavalier is stepped up. The focus is shifted from battlefield beam weapons to a laser based ABM system. Back in Asia, China, taking advantage of Russia’s condition, invades and occupies much of Siberia, just as Nikulin takes the capital of Moscow and proclaims the existence of the Novaya Soyuz--the New Soviet Union.
2009: In Europe, the EU, seeing what is happening in the world around them, decide to do what the Americans have done. They form the Union of Europe, encompassing all of Continental Europe and Asia Minor, with the exception of European Russia. Britain chooses to remain independent. The Sherwood FR. 42 reactor is used for the first time at a power plant on a trial basis. It provides power for several rural farming communities in the American Midwest. Project Hoplite, an effort to develop a battlefield power armor, is initiated. The Cavalier ABM system, powered by three FR. 42 reactors rigged together in a highly haphazard arrangement, enters service trials. It is found to be satisfactory, except for the reactor battery, which is just downright inefficient. As such, work on the FR. 132, basically an overglorified FR. 42, is begun. In Russia, Boris Nikulin drives the Chinese out of Siberia, and comes face to face with the new Siberian republic, a large state with the capital at Vladivostok. The Civil War begins.
2010: FR. 132 is rigged to Cavalier laser system. Proves to be satisfactory. A battery of eight FR. 132 reactors is installed at Vancouver and provides power to a good part of British Columbia on a trial basis. Work on FR. 50, a relatively compact reactor, is finished, while work on the commercial FR. 500 is begun. Prototype M-9 Hoplite Alpha, essentially a US army test type exoskeleton with full armor and a hydrogen powered internal combustion engine, enters trials. First fuel cell powered car enters consumer market. Plans for a nationwide network of fusion plants are begun. China, annoyed with defeat in Siberia, goes south and absorbs a good part of Southeast Asia. Japan, Indonesia, and Australia ally with the USA against the threat of the Chinese, while Boris Nikulin wrests full control over Russia. The Russians, eager to defend themselves against the Chinese, send aid to their neighbors on the Chinese border to form a buffer zone. However, the border is still a scene of many minor skirmishes, some of which turn into downright undeclared wars. It is a hot zone in the purest sense of the word.
2010: A Cavalier ABM system enters field trials when it is deployed at Grand Forks Air Force Base. It proves very effective during both computer simulations and live fire testing. The laser manages to take out most of the incoming RVs. The study concludes that two Cavalier ABM systems operating in conjunction could be almost 100% effective for most nuclear strikes, in heavily targeted areas, five or so would do the trick. Nuclear war begins to look winnable once more…The M9 Hoplite Alpha finishes service trials, the main complaint being the fact that it is unsuited for extended operations. So, the M9 Hoplite Beta enters the planning stage. It is to have a “diaper” system (self explanatory) and extensive internal air-cooling, padding, and the like. The ultimate goal is for the operational vehicle to be ‘something that you could sleep overnight in quite comfortably,’ to quote the official report. Project Sargon begins. It is an effort to apply AI technology to battlefield applications. An M1A3 is retrofitted as a Sargon ATP (Automated Target Persecution) testbed. It is an M1A3 equipped with a Cray optical computer, linked to a sensor battery. It is designed to be capable of operating independently on the battlefield. It does fine in small scale engagements with computer simulations, but an operational, practical system is a long, long way off, as the stupidity of the system indicates. In one particularly funny incident, one of the tanks, pursuing a squad of enemy infantry, runs off of a cliff. Again, an operational system is a long way off. Work on the M1A4, a next-generation M1 Abrams, is begun. Basically, it’s an M1 with advanced battlefield computers on board, as well as a closed-cycle hydrogen combustion engine that recycles it’s own exhaust of water, giving it effectively unlimited range. In the civilian market, fuel cell cars rapidly outpace conventional vehicles, due to rapidly rising gas prices. OPEC’s days are clearly numbered. Uhh…make that decades. No, years…
2011: Hydrogen fuel cell cars now control most of market. OPEC begins panicking. US still takes in sizeable amount of petroleum for plastics, though. M1A4 prototype, basically a butchered M1A3 with a stretch hull, enters trials and performs well. Modification kits distributed to US Army to refit M1A3s. A test FR. 500 goes online in Portland, Oregon, and provides power for most of the region. M9 Hoplite Beta is declared fit for service and enters series production at Baker Industrial’s (the company chosen to manufacture such equipment, by contract) Salt Lake City plant. US army infantry begins training on the limited number of suits available, and a special elite trial battalion is formed to gain experience with the new weapon, as the military is being restructured. Large scale manufacture of FR. 500 reactors is begun. US aims to power country by fusion entirely by the end of FY 2020. RAND Corporation, under a commission from Boeing, performs a study on the subject of asteroid mining, which is found to be ‘feasible in the near, that is, 10-20 year, future.’ In the newly formed Union of New Russian Republics (the Russian in the sense of the region and such) a combat exoskeleton program, codenamed Project 12, is begun. The first suit of the series, known as the 1K01, codenamed ‘Ivan,’ enters the design stage. In the US, General Electronics, basically Microsoft risen from the grave, begins working in cooperation with US on Project Sargon. The Hot Zone between Russia and China goes hot in a very ugly fashion. The whole thing begins when a Chinese reconnaissance platoon wanders off course and falls afoul of a Russian MG squad, and is massacred as a consequence. The local Chinese commander, outraged, sends a platoon across to recover the corpses, but this too is repulsed. The Russians, angry at these incursions and growing suspicious, go on alert. The Chinese misinterpret this, and send an entire company across, at which point things get ugly. A firefight breaks out and the Russian send a raid across the border, attacking Chinese bases and fortifications. A Russian battalion surrounds and falls on a Chinese camp, slaughtering several hundred, as the Chinese and Russian armies attack each other. The whole thing is stopped by the UN, but not before around 3,000 troops total are brutally killed. It is something like the skirmishes between the Soviets and Japanese over 70 years previously. It also foreshadows things to come.
2012: The Japanese and their Australian allies begin to notice the imperialistic rumblings of their unpleasant neighbor, China. A general military buildup, with Japan remilitarizing, begins. The whole union gets extensive aid from the USA. The Japanese, seeing the new American exoskeletons, step up research on industrial models, and in the same year, the Honda Worker, a general purpose industrial ES, enters mass production. It sells quite well, first in Japan, then in the rest of the world where it is introduced two years later. Project Sargon bears fruit with the M1A4—2. The M1A4—2 is an unusual vehicle. It has, for the first time, a respectable AI capability. But it isn’t quite battle worthy, at least not yet. It can still be driven off of cliffs. Around a quarter of the US army is now equipped with exoskeletons, namely, Hoplite Betas. Since practically everything in the Army is fuel cell powered, the US Army needs very little oil.
And so, our story begins...but not until I get feedback!
right you are old chap 
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