The Beginning
"How do you fight an enemy that has no head, no organization, no clear objectives? How do you win a battle when your opponent is human nature itself?" - Gen Thomas D. Mallory, United American Provinces Air Force
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While the exact cause of the Anarchy Wars cannot be definitively pinned on any one event, most historians agree that the initial contributing catalyst was the 2043 United Nations Report on Corruption and Constituent Disparity, a multi-organizational study on the growing gap between world governments and the determinations of their citizens. The report highlighted several key factors, such as the polarization of partisan organizations, the advent and corrosive effect of widespread social media use, conventionalized journalistic bias, and the resurgence of toxic nationalism among world powers. Though presented as a global issue, one affecting all nations, the report specifically called out several major nations as key offenders, including many of the founding members of the UN itself.
The fallout from the report had immediate worldwide consequences. Protests surfaced in every major urban area, civil disobedience surged to unprecedented levels, and before long, riots became daily occurrences, pushing emergency resources to capacity. As order slowly disintegrated, most nations activated their civil defense forces for peacekeeping operations, but these moves—seen as another governmental overstep--only fueled the flames further, causing a sharp rise in violent unrest. |
The Attack on Washington
The pivotal nature of the attack on America's capital cannot be understated. It stands as a watershed moment for the entirety of the Anarchy Wars. Though on paper it appears to be one of the least destructive catastrophes of the era, with only thirty-one casualties and minimal damage to physical infrastructure, the lasting symbolic impacts went far beyond surface depth. In addition to the simultaneous bombing of the Capitol Building and the Department of State offices, concurrent cyber attacks managed to breach even the most rigorous security measures shielding national intelligence agencies, leading to a massive leak of key internal documents relating to government corruption and misuse of public trust. It was a major blow to a nation considered, at that time, to be impervious to such attacks.
The assault on Washington soon proved to be only the first in a devastating chain of events to follow, most infamously the 11 May attacks in Paris, London, Berlin, and Moscow. This wildfire of senseless destruction quickly spread to Africa, Asia, and South America, mostly targeting government infrastructure or the armed forces, with no particular organization claiming responsibility other than those gathered under the loose banner of Anonymous and the Disparates—a crude reference to the 2043 UN report. As key social services disintegrated worldwide, most of the world's population was left to fend for itself. Panic overcame reason, anarchy overcame order. Governments broke up into competing factions, partisan groups blaming each other for the corruption exposed by the series of leaked files. |
Retaliation
In the months following the onset of global chaos, the region surrounding San Francisco became a haven for anarchists, an area where law and order had long since disappeared. As part of the fight to regain societal order, a cooperation of regional militias known as the North American Alliance conducted a coordinated attack on Disparate anarchist militants entrenched within the city. Following an ineffective months-long siege, the Alliance commenced a two-week assault that resulted in the recapture of San Francisco and the deaths of nearly ninety thousand individuals. This is just a small snapshot of the many battles that we collectively refer to as the Anarchy Wars, but it stands as a representative example of the devastation and destruction witnessed around the globe.
While order was eventually slowly and painfully reestablished, region by region, the world would never be the same. Some countries managed to maintain a semblance of past borders and the status quo, while other nations disappeared off the map entirely, giving birth to other, more resilient ones. Above all, one thing was clear. Something had to change. Humankind would not be able to sustain a similar conflict again. |
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