Player's Reference: World Background

The Age of Myth: The Time Before the Rifts
In the distant past, Earth belonged to Mankind. Humanity had conquered the atom, had established a colony on Mars and permanent orbital colonies, and had even begun to deconstruct the mysteries of the human body. Bionics, chemical treatments to enhance human performance, and implants to tap the previously impossible potential of the brain all led to the belief that this was a golden age. The finest achievements of Mankind – the power armor designs known as the SAMAS and the Glitter Boy, the technology for Borgs, Juicers, and Crazies – all date from this period. The vast arcology of Chi-Town, originally planned as a low-environmental-impact habitat for the future, was established in the closing days of this era, and the still-active German corporate giant Triax, formed from the old companies Thyssen-Krupp, Siemens, and Daimler-Benz (“die dreie Achse”), forms a continuum with this time.

The Coming of the Rifts
The problem with golden ages is that they end. Three hundred years or so ago, a small regional conflict in South America sparked off a worldwide conflict, escalating in a matter of days to a full-on nuclear exchange. A combination of solar and astronomic alignments, the release of psychic energy from billions of deaths, and the raw energy release of nuclear war all led to a sudden, unpredictable surge of magical energy. The first signs of this were the appearance of the ley lines, shimmering blue lines connected to points of power – Stonehenge, St. Louis, the Great Pyramid. Next came the rise from the sea floor of Atlantis. As Atlantis rose and the nexus points began to surge with dimensional rifts, Mankind died. Sea levels rose an average of thirty feet worldwide. Weather was totally disrupted. Crops failed, feeding the rifts with each death. Only after near-extinction did equilibrium occur.

From the Ashes
Two hundred years of darkness ensued. In North America, draconian emergency measures preserved centers in Texas and Illinois, though communications between the two were cut. Quebec, located on a natural fortress, also did well. After two hundred years, the forces in command of NEMA, the National Emergency Military Authority, convened in the Chi-Town arcology to hammer out a new constitution. The survivors of the Great Cataclysm, their children, and their grandchildren were all dead, and with them the old United States increasingly faded into legend. What emerged was very similar to the old NEMA emergency-powers legislation, codified into permanent form. Pre-Cataclysm political philosophers would have been shocked at how blatantly fascist the Establishment Act was, focusing on unity and military production at the expense of the individual, but the Coalition States was born.

The Coalition faced its first serious challenge only a decade after formation, fighting a brutal war with the neighboring Federation of Magic. Neither side asked or gave quarter, and in 12 PA it seemed that the Chi-Town arcology was destined to fall. As it happened, the intervention of then-Major General Joseph Prosek led to the turning of the tide, and at the end of the four-year war, the Coalition was the strongest power in North America.

Europe
In Europe, the industrial superpower of Triax became the foundation for the New German Republic. The core of the Republic was centered on the old Rhine industrial districts, which became known as das Rheinwall - the Rhine Wall. The Rhine Wall, a sprawling mega-city that stretched from Strasbourg in the south to Aachen in the north, was anchored by Strasbourg at one end and the K-E-D (pronounced "kah-eh-deh," and derived from Cologne, Essen, and Duesseldorf) megacity at the other. The Republic rapidly expanded to encompass the industrial lands around Munich and included the old German regions of Bavaria, Swabia, and Saxony; over the next three centuries, it grew to include all of old Germany and began to explore the Alps and push into former Alsace-Lorraine, Poland, Denmark, and the Low Countries.

In the south, it met fierce resistance from the Gargoyle Empire, newly arrived from another world to claim the Alps and the Balkans for themselves. The never-ending war between Gargoyle and Republic is possibly the longest-running war in Earth history, lasting as it has since a hundred years before the Coalition was founded in America.

Modern History
In 70 PA, Joseph Prosek I was assassinated. After a turbulent regency that saw a distinct upswing in border violence, Karl Prosek, his son, was elected near-unanimously as Chairman. Karl’s influence was quickly felt; the iron grip of the Coalition government tightened further. In 78 PA, the Coalition Senate granted Karl Prosek the title Emperor, and within the year, he dissolved the Coalition Senate, replacing that elected body with the Advisory Council. These changes were minor, mostly replacing illusion with fact. The same year as his elevation, the Emperor announced a public holiday for the birth of his heir-apparent, Joseph Prosek II.