Part 5: The New Dark Age (1990s to 2020s)

After the opening up of nuclear warfare in the early 90s, the world entered an unprecedented era of international tension. Military spacecraft were built at a phenomenal rate, the armaments industries, long neglected during the Detente, built ever more ambitious and insane weapons of war. Whole populations moved away from Earth, to huddle in the catacombs under the Lunar surface, to find a hole in the wastes of Mars, or to hide beneath Venus' poisonous skies. Those states which had colonies drew up complex contingency plans, those that didn't prayed to whatever god seemed to exist in these unenlightened times. Neutral states wavered one side or the other, ultimately collapsing as they tried to find a suitable protector, India ultimately leading a military bloc of her own around the Indian Ocean. Small proxy wars raged everywhere, shifting the borders but none of the Great Powers were brave enough for a direct confrontation. Really, the main fighting occurred over former Neutrals not under India's protection.

Ironically, the war came because of an accident. The massive supercomputers, driven by atomic hearts and clicking valves were calibrated to dates which recognised the date in the form DD/MM/YY. However, this meant that the year was only recognised in two digits meaning the computers would think it was 1900 not 2000 and their operations would go mad. As it was this theory only produced a few actual errors. A few traffic lights went wrong, and the more automated factories completely shut down production, particularly problematic in the US. But crucially, one of those few systems was the Soviet Early Warning System. The computer erroneously reported an attack, and the officers carried out their orders precisely to schedule before the report could be error-checked. The war was soon real as the the USSR and United States sent hundreds of rockets shooting towards one another. Massive war machines waded through the sea to clash in the Bering Straits, unfathomable armies fought in Korea and China. And hundreds of new suns lit up the world.

When the dust settled, a new world emerged. The Axis had been caught in the crossfire, as had India, but both had emerged relatively unscathed. By comparison, the Comintern and TOTO were fairly horrifically bloodied by the war. The USSR effectively ceased to exist, and China was reduced to rubble. Across Asia, the various Soviet backed states either fell apart or clung desperately to life, depending on how badly they had come out of American bombardment. The British Dominions emerged relatively unscathed, albeit isolated and with more than few black spots, but the UK itself was pretty much immolated. The USA was scarred but alive, and several of her satellites had come out worse, with Japan and Korea a fairly similar rubble to China. The Third World War ended with an American pyrrhic victory, and the Axis prematurely proclaimed their victory over mankind as they marched east into a ravaged Russia, and sent ships to claim seared Britain as their own.

Computers were rebuilt and altered, and another period of rebuilding began. Since the incursions of the middle of the 20th century, the world had become resilient to massive upheavals and despite the destruction wreaked, the USA began to bounce back. She altered borders amongst her satellites to reward loyalists, break up those who questioned Washington and integrate her spoils into the TOTO alliance system. Huge robots built new cities to house displaced populations, and set up satellite governments in ravaged China and Southeast Asia. The long subverted democracy of the US delivered a new America First President, Alexander Steel, who eagerly foresaw America's rise to power as inevitable and looked forward to devastating the Nazis as thoroughly as they had conquered the Communists. Of course, that conquest was not all that thorough, as the colonies on Mars hurried themselves evacuating populations to reconstituted states on Mars. The USSR and the Comintern, lived on, amongst the dusty, enchroming cities, colossal canals, and emerging seas of wheat of Mars.

For quite some time, an uneasy peace persisted between the USA and the Axis. The Axis now dominated Europe, Africa, much of Asia, and the USA seemed isolated in its Western Hemisphere. The neutrals in India and its sphere were attempting to flee the Earth in their own craft, massive spaceships designed to build a self-sufficient community. They could see which way the wind was blowing. But the peace persisted. After the Third World War of 2000-2003, the Fourth World War would not be fought until 2015.

The was was even more brutal, with awful abominations of war let loose from Africa. The small, weak remnants of the British Commonwealth on Earth were swept aside, the hard-scrabble colonies of Eurasia burned. Europe was turned into a charnel house, Africa into a mausoleum, a mess of warlords and radioactive nightmare-scapes. The Americas smouldered as enormous automatons demolished the glittering chrome cities of Long and his successors. In a last spiteful attack, the US unleashed its most powerful nuclear weapons on the Axis colonies on the Moon. The great cities burned, and into the guttering crevasses, the US poured Ultra-Napalm, burning out the catacomb colonies. The jewel of Fascism glowed like an ember for three years as the mighty cities were swallowed by flame. The USA had won again. A rump state clung to the West Coast, ruling over a few Pacific centred satellites. But those last remnants were rapidly relocating to the industrial manufactories, orbital arcologies and flying super-cities of Venus.

And so the New Dark Age ended, as the threat of human extinction ended. Man had new homes now, but they were no safer or kinder than their homes on Earth. America and the TOTO states ruled over Venus, beneath iron skies. The Soviet Union and her Comintern allies sheltered in the greening environment of Mars. And Germany and the Axis partners clung to their rocks in the Asteroid Belt. A few massive Neutral Spacecraft, housing entire nations also floated between the planets. The modern world was being born.