Tomorrow: Invasions

With the new alien threat landing in Europe, most of the countries there were forced to fight only on that front. The Americans, applying their massive industrial capability (which remained formidable), began to shove enemy troops out of their country. The aliens were surprised that the humans almost entirely stopped fighting each other to fight them, and initial gains were slow, though Italy and almost all the area around the Mediterranean were captured almost immediately.

The aliens did make one mistake – they had no way to deal with space-based weaponry, which the humans had not fielded up until that point. As such there had been no need for it. However, the Russians were the first, launching their Kometa 1 kinetic bombardment satellites. Though flimsy and with limited uses (the Russians had no way to resupply them once they fired all the projectiles) they gave the USSR the ability to strike with devastating power at any point within enemy lines. As much of the aliens’ gains had been made in Nazi Germany and France, they weren’t concerned with collateral damage in the slightest, allowing for the destruction of important alien, Nazi and French bases at the same time. This resumed war between the human blocs on the Mediterranean, while the aliens turned southward towards the vastly weaker Africa and Middle East.

Kometa 1. Note the four tungsten rods – they were used as kinetic projectiles against ground targets. The Soviets, displaying a remarkable amount of foresight, made sure they developed a reliable way to target where the rods would fall before using the weapon on actual fighting.Japanese forces, having captured Hawaii and southern Alaska early in the war, used that territory to launch an attack on Vancouver and Seattle. With American and Canadian forces concentrated in the south and east, the invaders gained strong beachheads on the West Coast and shipped masses of troops and materiel across the Pacific to North America, having previously annihilated the Soviet Pacific Fleet and Chinese navy in a chain of battles around Korea and Formosa.

Tomorrow: Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...

Year 1962 - ATL

With virtually every nation of consequence at war with each other, much of the planet was now covered by blasted wastelands, pockmarked with craters and rendered toxic by chemical weapons. Still the belligerent nations refused to back down, continuing the war even though it would almost certainly devastate life for a century or more after the cessation of hostilities.

The civilian populations of the globe (what was left, anyway; attacks on civilian targets had become quite a common practice) were a grim lot, with no hope for relief from the conflict that threatened their every living moment.

But all that was about to get much worse...

------------------------------------------------

They had long awaited this moment.

Their time had now come to strike.

Their people would once more have a planet to call their own.

Earth.

Centuries ago, a space-faring race had been nearly wiped out by a gamma ray burst that wiped out all life on their planet. With no other choice, they took to the stars in a massive fleet of ships. Since then, parasitic diseases, attacks from hostile races, and the natural hazards of space had whittled their numbers down until they were about half the population of Earth at the time of the Armageddon War, as it was called. When this race found Earth, they immediately, as they had done countless times before, ran a sensor sweep to compare the atmosphere, water levels, etc. with their homeworld. It passed. Excited preparations were quickly made for their conquest of the world; the humans had not gone unnoticed. They were outnumbered two to one, but made up for it with the sheer power and sophistication of their technology. This and their superior intellect would destroy the scatterbrained and impulsive humans.

As their ships descended through the atmosphere over the Mediterranean, the Many prepared to seize this planet for their own.

Now even the home of the human race, its birthplace and its nurturer, was under attack.

Tomorrow: No end in sight

Year 1958 - ATL

The World War was in full swing, dwarfing the Great War [WWI to us] forty years earlier to a mere skirmish. Battles raged across Europe, Asia, and Africa. The worst of it was along the Russio-German border, where great swathes of the landscape had been rendered desolate and unusable. Australia and the Americas were as yet untouched.

But that was soon to change. The USSR was already at war with the United States and it would only be a matter of time before American troops were on their soil. So they decided to enact a preemptive strike against them. The Red Navy was rather short on anything not covered in guns, but a quick overhaul of a few of their battleships turned them into quite excellent troop carriers.

The hammer fell in January of 1959. Red Army amphibious attack units arrived near-simultaneously in California and Alaska, catching the US almost completely off-guard. Germany and the Axis had been pressuring Latin American nations, Mexico in particular, to attack the US to keep them out of the European war. With this bold move by the Soviets, the Mexican government was suddenly much more open to this and accepted a financial contribution from Germany. Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru assisted Mexico with troops and ships and on February 19th they entered the war, catching the Americans off-guard again.

In North Africa and the Middle East, Arab countries rallied to support Turkey against Bulgaria, which had attempted to seize parts of Turkish territory. Shortly thereafter, an incident along their border with the Soviets led them to declare war on the USSR. In Scandinavia, Norway switched sides to the Allies when German subs sank Norwegian merchant ships that had strayed into captured Danish waters. Finland received assistance from the Fascist bloc as they rebelled against Russian rule.

In the Americas, Australia and Canada had sided with the US against the belligerent Latin American nations. Large gains were made by the Soviets into Alaska and Canada, while the Latin troops marched up through Texas and into the Great Plains. However, the United States was soon able to put a stop to their advance and the American front gradually settled into attrition.

With the entire world aflame with war, the future looks quite bleak...

Tomorrow: Thunder and lightning

Year 1955 - ATL (alternate timeline)

As the exchange of threats between China and Japan continued, with each nation poised to invade Burma and start a war, the League of Nations rushed to resolve the conflict before it sparked into violence. The fascist nations pledged their support to Japan, mainly out of hatred for the communists, while the Soviet Union and Korea backed China. The Western powers attempted vainly to restore peace, but Japan issued an ultimatum to China to pull its forces out of Burma or it would attack. China responded scornfully and Japan was quick to declare war.

Of course, the massive array of alliances between the nations quickly brought others into the war. Soviet and Nazi armies smashed together along their border, while Japan and China traded air strikes and substantial assaults along the Burmese front. The now-impotent League of Nations threatened to use British and French forces to break up the fighting, but it was largely ignored by the warring power blocs. When Norway was dragged into the war by a Soviet offensive from former Finland, Sweden [alllied with the Western power bloc] became alarmed that its borders would be violated. These fears proved valid when the fighting spilled over onto Swedish territory. Sweden responded by attacking both sides, earning itself war against both Norway and the USSR. Britain, France, and the US were quick to come to aid Sweden.

The war quickly spread throughout Europe and South and East Asia. The African colonies were forced to develop industry to meet demands for raw materials from their parent country, and also fought wars between each other. Soon Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe were all embroiled in war. American industry helped to support the Allied forces, while the USA built up a strong military force to serve on the European and African fronts.

However, this left the Pacific coast largely undefended, most of the Pacific Fleet having been relocated to the Atlantic to prepare for overseas combat. Japan, China and the Soviets noticed this, but only the Soviets were preparing to act on it...

Character Profile: Sanar

NOTE: The Tier slot refers to the power tier of the character that I use:

Tier 0: your average guy on the street

Tier 1: trained fighter. Highest real-life level and usually the lowest level for an RP character

Tier 2: fairly basic power. Usually only one

Tier 3: multiple 2-worthy powers or one fairly good one, but not as good as a 4

Tier 4: essentially whatever abilities this character has are enough to dominate most fights

Tier 5: deific, omniverse-altering power. At this point you should be running in the opposite direction

Sanar ver4.5

Absolutely not, we can’t let this guy anywhere within 500 feet of plastic explosives.

That’s so awesome it doesn’t matter how stupid it is!

Name: Sanar Arake

Tier: 2

Age: 24

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Occupation: Military engineer and weapons technician

Appearance: Is fairly tall. Has blond, spiky hair and steel gray eyes. Wears dark gray jeans, a black t-shirt, and a lighter gray jacket. In addition to this he has a pair of boots that rather look like they could have been part of the Iron Man suit at one point, and skintight black gloves composed of nanoparticles.

Abilities: Technopathy, or the magical manipulation and creation of technology. Sanar specializes in animation, and also in storing complicated spells in magitech devices for later and more convenient use.

Equipment: His boots, his gloves, a bo staff with about half a billion different gadgets and spells built in, a cloud of nanoparticles that surrounds him at all times, numerous automatons, a number of firearms and directed-energy weapons, and probably a lot of other things I’m forgetting.

Personality: Hyperactive bipolar pyromaniac mechanical genius/wackjob. There you go.

History: Essentially unremarkable, apart from his career in schooling. Got near-perfect grades, but was frequently in trouble for things like animating all of the electrical wiring on campus to “liven things up.” Shortly after graduation he joined a munitions company, where he continues to work to this day [saving all the best stuff for his own personal use, of course.]

Likes: Explosions, FPS video games, pears

Dislikes: Things getting too quiet, boredom, corporate medicine

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Notes: IQ of 207

Tomorrow: A matter of time

With WWII having been postponed, the many nations of the world had plenty of time to peacefully develop technology. The Axis powers and Communists were especially suspicious of one another, spurring a technology war between the two blocs that saw many advances in the fields of land warfare.

Meanwhile, the West was largely ignoring events between the other two major blocs, as they were focusing instead on economic matters. This led to advances in air-based technology, meaning that the air forces of Britain, France, and the United States gradually came to inherit fighters and bombers that were far advanced over those of, say, the Soviets or Nazis. The jet engine was quickly developed into a staple technology, and while the Communist and Fascist nations eventually picked up on it, the West retained a large advantage in this area.

Naval power remained fairly evenly split between the three major blocs, the Arab bloc collapsing fairly soon after its formation, leaving nothing of consequence behind. Italy picked up on a German strategy from the Great War some thirty years earlier, and became experts in the areas of dirigibles, particularly their use in warfare. Nazi and Soviet specialties lay in their tank designs, with Nazi battle strategy also proving ridiculously effective in a border dispute with Communist Poland. Japanese and Spanish power lay largely in their navy, mainly in grand battleships.

By the time 1953 rolled around, the major powers were largely all at the same technology and military power level. The Soviet Union had annexed most of Eastern Europe, with a few notable exceptions such as Greece and Turkey. The Nazis and Soviets frequently got up in arms over border disputes, mainly along the former Polish border, which threw the League of Nations into a frenzied effort to stop the fighting, mainly through threats of economic sanction by the wealthier Western countries.

Eventually, though, Japan and China ran against each other, over Burma. China wanted to spread Communism to Burma, while Japan wanted to establish their own control over the country. Neither nation would back down, despite a trade embargo against Japan by the US.

It was only a matter of time....

Tomorrow: Yesterday

Behind the buzz created by SETI's receipt of their response [actually little more than a duplicate of the original signal with some changes, albeit changes recognizable as intentional modifications], a single scientist, formerly of the UN, worked on his own project. His name was Derek Ramirez, a Mexican American scientist. He had been one of the leading researchers into the paraphysical technology behind the Berlin Project, and his breakthroughs in the science had led to the ultimate creation of the jump drive. However, credit for this was taken by fellow scientist Jacques Letoure, of France, who stole the research and prettied it up as his own. When Ramirez protested, his colleagues accused him of trying to stir up trouble. But he refused to be silenced, and this obstinacy eventually led to his expulsion from the project.

Bitter towards the United Nations for allowing this to happen, Ramirez made use of his considerable talent with computers to siphon a couple hundred million dollars from the budget of this program. Working laboriously day and night for over four years, he finally completed his project in 2114. He had built a time machine.

Ramirez knew that this invention would almost certainly place his name in history books the world over. This goal in mind, he set off back to the year 1936, intending to acquire some artifact from the Third Reich [of which he was an ardent admirer]. However, his utter lack of foresight [hindsight?] resulted in his capture by the SS and subsequently his being worked to death in labor camps the following year.

Of course, this may seem insignificant, but the butterfly effect will now come into play. The startling discovery of a strange flying object [the time machine] in his airspace had decidedly startled Hitler, forcing him to take a more cautious approach to foreign policy. This resulted in the absence of the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland two years later.

Meanwhile, without any bothersome treaties for him to worry about, Stalin began to focus the considerable power of Soviet heavy industry to aid the Communists in China. Over the course of the next couple of years, extending into mid-WWII in our time, the Chinese Nationalists were caught off-guard by Soviet armies pouring over China's border [taking Mongolia in the process] and smashing into them from their rear. At the same time, Mao's Communists launched a vicious assault from the front, catching the Nationalists completely off-guard. Within a few weeks China had gone Communist, Chiang Kai-shek being executed as an "enemy of the state."

These events made nearby Imperial Japan highly suspicious, albeit it did stall their invasion of China, which did not occur in 1937.

In the meantime, Britain went about its business granting India independence, and France badly mismanaged Indochina. Hitler decided to listen to his generals, and switched to wholesale manufacture of Panzer IIIs and IVs instead of the obsolete Is and IIs. Britain also granted Palestine independence, and Jews quickly gained control of the country and renamed it Israel. Britain also granted many of the other states in the area independence, with Syria and Lebanon being forced into conflict with France in order to win self-government. Muslim majorities quickly gained power there and began warring with Israel. However, British vehicles and aircraft enabled the Israelis to utterly demolish the Arabs, resulting in the destruction of much of Egypt and Jordan by Israeli bombers.

Most of the other major powers had information on this, noting the failing points and strengths of the British designs and filing the information away. The year was now 1946, ATL [Alternate timeline]. Four major blocs had been formed, the Western Allies still recognizable, the Axis powers intact and including Franco's Spain, Communists in Russia and China, and the Arabs in the Middle East, smarting badly from their defeat at the hands of Israel and trying hard to refloat themselves.

Tomorrow: To Boldly Go

Year 2068

When we last left our alternate Earth, the AL had just been dissolved and the US, China, India, Britain, and Sweden were under heavy rebuilding programs. Manchuria, Russia, and Tibet were also receiving funding from the UN [a group of Belarussian rebels had taken over Russia and es-established it, ousting the other nations in the process] as the massive rebuilding continued.

The United Nations was, in effect, a sort of world government at this point, with the governments of most major powers having been annihilated during the Dragon War. A minor reorganization of the UN had ended up with the structure resembling that of the United States, complete with president, legislative body, and judicial branch. The current president of the UN was a Briton named Robert Ericson, who was one of the major advocates of rebuilding the nations devastated by the Dragon War. UN money poured into those nations, and by 2089 Ericson had succeeded in rebuilding them. Now came an age of progress...

The sole nations of consequence that were not part of the UN at this point were fascist dictatorships that had sprung up in Peru, Venezuela, Mali, Libya, and Indonesia. These nations signed mutual defense pacts with each other, particularly because some of their larger neighbours believed they were a threat.

But for now they were not important. The UN began a space exploration program, starting with a permanent base on the moon [which was now referred to as Luna. Earth became Terra and the Sun became Sol, in accordance with science fiction.] and then a manned expedition to Mars. Shortly thereafter a number of satellite mirrors were launched into orbit around Mars, while car-sized minifactories were sent to the surface to pump greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere. These two factors were carefully monitored and adjusted by the UN base on the surface, with gradual results of noticeable changes in Martian ambient temperature and atmospheric density.

The United Nations now had control over much of Terra's resources, allowing them to embark on a number of missions that saw colonies on Luna, Mars, and a number of moons, primarily those of Jupiter and Saturn. The fascist governments on Terra were little more than an annoyance now, as UN physicists worked on the Berlin Project, an extremely advanced project that created the technologies of interstellar jump drives and ansible communication systems. This allowed, in 2113, Project Spock [named whimsically after the Star Trek character] to send expeditions to extrasolar systems and eventually establish colonies there, on Cassini, Kepler, Atlantis, Sarpedon, and Demeter.

But on top of all this, in 2114, a monumental event occurred. SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, received a response....

Updates 2

Featuring a few more inventions...

Táifēng-class aircraft carrier:

The Táifēng-class was designed in anticipation of the Sino-American War as an answer to the American Nimitz-class carriers that had long held superiority over the seas. These carriers are practically small islands, outweighing the Nimitz-class by at least 50,000 tons. Their air wing is also far larger, consisting of over 120 aircraft at one time. The Táifēngs are nuclear-powered, and carry a variety of missiles including Pīlì ship-to-ship missiles as well as several kinds of anti-aircraft missiles. What appear to be large windows on all sides of the bridge are actually several separate windows, all next to each other. They're at least a foot thick at their narrowest point, allowing the bridge crew to observe the skies and seas in all directions while still offering ample protection from enemy gunfire. They continue to be employed by Nationalist China at the time of writing.

B8-19 Firebrand:

The Firebrand was a Swedish model, which performed successfully in the Dragon War against Chinese fighters. Capable of near-hypersonic speed using ramjet technology previously found only on the SR-71 Blackbird, the Firebrand used rockets to get in the air and then the ramjets took over. The gs created by executing maneuvers at this speed were negated using a revolutionary mass driver device created by Swedish scientists. No Chinese aircraft could stand against it, meaning that the Three Powers achieved air supremacy shortly after its introduction. Firebrands continue to be deployed today by the Swedish Air Force, as well as the newly reconstructed US Air Force and the British and Indian ones as well.

OC test: Athn Tonn

Random story I thought up about my OC [Original Character = someone I made up] Athn Tonn [AY-thin TAWN]

________________________________________________

The owner of the bustling restaurant looked up as the newcomer entered. This new guy had something about him, some aura, seemingly of power. Shrugging, he went back to the plate he was washing.

This new figure was a human, slightly above average in height and with a wiry build. His skin had a reddish tint to it, and his shaggy black hair was kind longish, going almost to his shoulders. He wore a red-brown suit. Probably a good one at one point, but now it was covered in gashes and burn marks. He also wore a red-tinted monocle and a fedora.

The figure sat down and ordered a doughnut, which the owner promptly delivered to him. He took a bite, looking thoughtful. The owner, somewhat put off by the man's lack of conversation, went back to the dishes. He was almost certainly a native of this plane, but still. Something about him was....strange. Yes, strange was the perfect word for it. It was almost as if...

The owner's train of thought was derailed by a sudden commotion up front. Frowning, he went out. There were two soldiers, Jeelian by the looks of them, standing in the doorway. The lead one hefted his weapon: the sort of gun one would normally expect to see on a howitzer. "We're looking for an outlaw by the name of Athn Tonn."

The newcomer stood. "My name's Athn Tonn. Are you going to arrest me?" His tone took the owner by surprise. He might have been commenting on the weather. It had surprised the soldiers slightly as well, evident in the way they shifted uncomfortably on their feet. "Yes, as a matter of fact we are."

Tonn smiled, revealing sharpened teeth that gleamed in the light from the fluorescent lamp on the ceiling. "Well, now, that won't do. If you please, I'll be going back to my doughnut." Now the owner noticed that he had a strange accent, rather like halfway between Russian and Irish.

The soldier pointed his weapon at Tonn. At this point, the owner spoke up. "Now, now, let's not have any fighting in here. Please, take it outside!" Tonn sighed, flipping a few coins onto the table and taking his doughnut with him. The soldiers followed suit.

Satisfied that the problem was no longer his, the owner turned back to go and finally finish those gods-darned dishes. However, he was interrupted for the third time by the noise of an explosion, followed by a second one. Spluttering impolite words, he raced back to the front, where the full-length windows provided an excellent view of what had just happened.

One of the soldiers had fired at Tonn, hitting him directly in the chest with a round that would have blown half the building off had he been inside. By all rights he should be dead. Yet he wasn't. A closer look revealed a shimmering shield of translucent red energy hovering in front of Tonn. He dismissed it with a wave. "Y'know, if you really want someone to cooperate, shooting at them isn't really your best course of action," Tonn said, raising a hand, palm outward to face the men. A wave of dark red flames spouted from his hand, engulfing one of the soldiers.

The soldier backed off, flaming and spewing obscenities. The other one raised his weapon and fired. Tonn gave a half-smile and vaulted over the projectile, snatching it out of the air and pitching it back at the unfortunate man. The explosion blew him apart, leaving a small crater in the parking lot. The other man, having dismissed the hellfire, threw a lightning bolt at Tonn, who grabbed it and hurled it skyward. He then made a sweeping gesture and several bolts of reddish energy flew out and connected with the man, converting him to a bloody, rust-like substance. That done, Tonn looked first at the crater and assorted body parts, then to the rusted skeletal corpse. Turning, he walked out of the parking lot, taking another bite from his doughnut.

Tomorrow: The Aftermath

In episode 2 of Tomorrow, we will explore the consequences of the Dragon War and see what happens next.

When we last left our alternate Earth, on November 18th of 2031, China had just surrendered to the Three Powers [Britain, Sweden, and India] and the Communists had fallen out of power, replaced by the Nationalist government from Taiwan. It left behind a number of states, including a war-torn Finland and Iran, a unified Korea, and the rest of the countries it had annexed. Further, the provinces of Tibet and Manchuria were given independence from Chinese rule.

Much of the world was in ruins, with the entire US still rebuilding from the devastating Chinese kinetic strike in 2027 and the Three Powers facing similar problems. China itself had been nearly annihilated by Swedish air strikes, and most of India had been flattened. Nearly half a billion people had been killed in the fighting.

One country presented a particularly large problem. Lee's genocidal rampage had completely annihilated the Russian people, leaving a massive expanse of land with no government, no people, nothing. Nationalist China would very much have liked to retain possession of Russia, but the Three Powers wouldn't hear of it. Their cities had been devastated by Chinese kinetic bombardment, and the resources of former Russia would very much help with recovery.

Unfortunately for them, the countries of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Ukraine, and Finland, along with the new nation of Prussia [formed from German colonists who had settled in what is now Latvia, Estonia, and parts of Lithuania after China annihilated them], were faced with no such internal problems, and their military forces had been built up considerably out of fear of Chinese troops. These nations quickly established claims to large swathes of Russian land, ending any question of British, Indian, or Swedish colonies there.

However, these nations were not the problem. To the south of all this, Pakistan had wrested independence from India again and were calling for an Islamic revival throughout the Middle East under Pakistani Governor General Aban Qadir. Aban, a devout Muslim, wanted to bring the whole world under Islamic rule and to do this, he was first going to unite the Middle East. Pakistan had somehow ended up with [read: stolen] a large quantity of military technology from the Three Powers and China, and it stationed these along the border to bluff India into staying out of its affairs. India, in no shape to fight back, agreed to a nonaggression pact between the two nations. With that, Pakistan's attention turned back to the Middle East.

Iran was its next target. Under Chinese rule, Muslims had suffered much persecution for their beliefs and many of them hungered for revenge. Pakistan's Islamic revival had helped to agitate this, and Iran's military was bolstered by Chinese units as well. Soon, the nation became Pakistan's closest ally and urged that the Arab states unite.

Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia soon allied with these two, creating what they called the Arabian League. Naturally, all this activity aroused the suspicion of nearby Israel, which began to mobilize its forces in the event that it was attacked. But the AL had no interest in Israel for the moment. What they wanted to do was build up a significant military force for the world takeover.

The US and Three Powers were ready contributors to the AL's cause. With the AL having control of the Suez Canal and much of the world's oil, they eagerly agreed to ship such military goods as destroyers, UAVs, tanks, and the like. China also helped, selling off military surpluses that were no longer needed. Qadir was immensely pleased. He immediately began a training program to teach AL troops how to use these new toys. Perhaps Qadir's happiest moment came when the US sold the Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey, and Wisconsin to AL forces. The battleships were a welcome addition to the AL's navy, as the US no longer had any use for them.

Qadir's military training program alarmed Israel greatly. Deciding that war with the AL was inevitable, Israeli UAVs attacked important AL bases in Jordan and the Sinai peninsula, followed closely by its ground forces. However, the AL was not the disorganized band of states that the Israelis had faced in the past. AL forces quickly crushed the Israeli invasion and smashed their armies, taking Israel back into Arab possession and renaming it Palestine. They then launched a surprise attack on India, sweeping across the border and destroying Indian forces almost before they had news of the invasion. New Delhi fell on January 21st, 2046, to the forces of the AL. The AL then swept northward into Turkey and Europe.

Here, though, Qadir realized he had overstepped his boundaries. Azeri, Prussian, and Belarussian forces organized a strong defense in Greece and northern Turkey, later assisted by Swedish airpower. This resulted in a series of crushing defeats, turning the AL's armies back onto their own territory. Angered, Qadir ordered that all oil shipments to the rest of the world stop immediately. This was quite possibly the stupidest move he could have made. Almost immediately, Swedish, Belarussian, Azeri, Prussian, and Chinese forces smashed the remainder of the AL's armies. An extremist, deciding that Qadir was a lunatic, shot him, and infighting within the League resulted in its rapid disintegration, with the Israelis retaking their homeland and the Sinai peninsula as well.

With this, it seemed the world was going fairly normal, and it did for a while, until about 2068. To find out exactly what happened, please join us next time in Episode Three of Tomorrow!

Updates

Hello everyone. Episode 2 of Tomorrow shall be along shortly, but right now I will share an interesting craft I came up with in relation to the China episode: the Yīng attack helicopter.

The Type-43 Yīng Light Attack Craft was actually designed by Lee himself. The Yīng was designed primarily with anti-infantry engagements in mind, but after several incidents with Thai self-propelled anti-air guns, they were equipped with batteries of up to four Jiàntóu anti-armor missiles.

The Yīng's success comes from its incredible maneuverability, thanks to the unique twin turboprop assembly. This gives it excellent capabilities on the battlefield, and pilots report it is remarkably stable as well. The autocannon mounted under the chin has full 360-degree rotation and around 60 degrees vertical movement.

Yīngs saw action in the many invasions China performed, as well as the Sino-American War [in which it far outclassed the AH-64D Apache Longbows of the US Army] and the Dragon War [performed rather well until Swedish fighters such as the B8-19 Firebrand appeared and outclassed Chinese airpower by a good amount]. Currently, Nationalist China still employs these, as do Pakistan, Iran, and Vietnam. A good number of them were also "acquired" by Muslim extremists in the Middle East, likely through Pakistan.

Tomorrow: Rise and Fall of the Dragon

Basically, Tomorrow is a series I'm running where we consider an alternate future.

EPISODE 1: Rise and Fall of the Dragon

The first part of our series begins in 2010 with the rise to power of politicians Elijah Lee and Vladimir Hydrov, who come to power in China and the Russian Federation respectively. Lee, a devout Communist, seeks to bring the world under the banner of the People's Republic of China. Vladimir, also a Communist, is significantly dwarfed by his more powerful southern neighbor and decides to come along for the ride, converting to Communism.

Lee's plan follows an insidious policy similar to detente, in which he supposedly renounced Communism and allowed free-market reforms and bogus elections to fool Western powers, primarily Britain and the US, into believing that Communism has finally fallen. Lee went as far as changing the official state name to the Chinese Imperium and even altering the flag to a red white and blue color scheme.

This successfully fooled the world at large, as Lee and Hydrov launched a massive military research campaign. Soon, the already immense Chinese Army was now the most technologically advanced military branch in the world, and Chinese battleships and carriers rivaled even American power. Russia's achievements went even better: Their military had swollen to unbelievable size, surpassing even China, and they had a network of bombardment satellites and surveillance satellites that covered every inch of the planet.

Lee, paranoid as per the norm for dictators, decided to eliminate Hydrov, fearing competition. Hydrov suffered a sudden bout of illness and shortly died, whereupon his successor [A Chinese agent, of course] moved all of the Russian military to Chinese territory. China then secretly started forest fires, encouraged terrorism, and in general practically destroyed Russia as a nation.

With Russia falling even beyond North Korea in terms of power, Lee cunningly declared that China would step in and aid the failing nation. In reality, he was only pretending at benevolent motives while he took command of Russian troops and bases the world over and annexed Russia into the Imperium. With this, China's industry and economy boomed as Britain, America, India, Canada, and Sweden sent billions to aid in Russia's rebuilding.

Tragically, almost all Russian civilians were rounded up and massacred by the Chinese Army, practically exterminating the Russian people. With this, Russia's territories in Finland and Kazakhstan became part of the Imperium as well.

Lee cunningly took advantage of the immense resources of Russia that had fallen into his hands. With Russian oil and mineral resources, China's military advantage became overwhelming, as their killsat network sat above potential rivals. Their army, navy, air force, and secret police were the most advanced forces in the world. With this, they set about using political subversion and puppet governments to organize a reason to invade the first target of a new Communist empire: Southeast Asia.

The minute the first shots were fired, South Asia was doomed. Chinese armor and troops poured across the border in unimaginably huge numbers while the formidable Chinese navy blockaded their ports. Within the first few weeks, Laos and Vietnam gave in. Myanmar withstood slightly longer, but then fell. Cambodia was next, leaving a beleaguered Thailand alone against the Imperial juggernaut. The Thais fought bravely, but Chinese troops annihilated their military and stormed into Bangkok.

For the most part, the other major powers of the day condemned the Southeast Asians for their supposed "unprovoked aggression" and "terrorist activities" against China. They swallowed Lee's reports utterly and without question. South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan were unconvinced, as was a West Virginian congressman, Peyton Thomson, who immediately began a closer look at China's policies...

But now Lee's attention turned to his irritating neighbors in North Korea, who had begun threatening nuclear war. After Lee scornfully responded to Kim Jong-Il that "North Korean nuclear power....is an overinflated propaganda balloon. Let us see your supposed weapons," North Korea immediately declared war on China. The South, sensing opportunity, invaded the North just as the Chinese war machine swept down from the north. A manufactured incident gave Lee an excuse to wipe the South off the map as well, with no aid from the US. Taiwanese troops fought alongside the South, which allowed the crushing power of China's military to fall upon Taiwan as well. When South Korean and Taiwanese survivors fled to Japan, China accused Japan of harboring terrorists intent on disrupting the Imperium. Despite frantic denials by the Japanese, China declared war. Unfortunately, the US, by now solidly stocked with Communist spies and lulled into a sense of security by Lee's propaganda, withdrew from Japanese bases and condemned them.

Japan fell within hours of the first shots on the islands. By this point, Chinese military had invaded Afghanistan and several other states in central Asia with the pretense of taking care of Al Qaeda, which they did. However, they also annexed those states. India, highly suspicious now of Chinese invasion threat, began building up a defense force. Britain and Sweden began the usual weak appeasement policies with China, but the United States became suspicious. Radical anti-Chinese parties, led by Thomson, grew more and more influential as American public opinion began to swing against China's expansionism.

America had, by this point, for all intents and purposes, annexed Saudi Arabia and Australia. China invaded Iran on the grounds that it was plotting against the Imperium [for once, this was true] and shortly afterward took over Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The Philippines fell to Chinese naval forces shortly afterward, followed by Indonesia.

Now, in 2024, Thomson was elected president at the head of the Radical Party. He immediately began to build up a force for the invasion of China. This fatal decision would ultimately lead to the destruction and humiliation of the United States.

The Sino-American War began in 2026, when American troops massed in northern Australia and Congress declared war on China on the grounds of Chinese subversion of the 51st state of Australia. China's response was vicious. Killsats rained destructive kinetic rounds down on Australian bases, annihilating half the US Army in one stroke. The other half had been loaded onto submarine transports and launched towards China's coastlines. The Chinese Navy soon swept down on them and began to destroy them easily. Meanwhile, this invasion force was suddenly thrown into confusion when Chinese space shuttles carrying antisatellite missiles blasted the entire American communications network to bits. Further, kinetic rounds flattened such cities as Chicago, New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco, Houston, Miami, and any other city that presented a large enough target. With the invasion force destroyed, China swept into Saudi Arabia and Australia, taking them for its own.

But it wasn't over yet. Lee was determined to show the West what the utter power of his Imperium was capable of. As a result, it wasn't long before Imperial troops stormed into the continental US itself. Within days, they had reached Washington. President Thomson was forced to sue for peace. At the negotiations, he balked when Lee stated that he would take Hawaii and give Alaska to Canada, intent on breaking the back of America forever. When Thomson refused, Lee acidly threatened to gift Mexico with the entire American Southwest, forcing the President to submit. The United States now was a ruined, smoldering country, relying on aid from Britain and Sweden to keep going. Seeing this, the two major European powers realized the need for action on their part.

Lee's next target was India. As his victorious armies returned, barely dented by clashing with America, he began formulating plans for the fall of the Subcontinent, codenamed Operation Trident. Forces would invade from Myanmar, Iran, and naval transports, to wipe out India once and for all.

British and Swedish officials realized that if China was ever to be stopped, this would be the place. The Battle of India decided the fate of the world. After staging an incident on the border, Trident went ahead full power. Lee was, however, caught off-guard by Swedish and British forces, sweeping in through Russia and capturing huge swathes of territory. Within weeks, they had encountered the Chinese Army and were already being driven back. The Indians held out courageously, fighting to the death against a foe vastly more powerful than they. Considering this, they did extremely well.

However, China was powerful enough to keep replacing men and units as soon as they were destroyed. Realizing this, the British Prime Minister, Cassius Roderick, pleaded with the broken American people to stop buying Chinese goods. Roderick's request was ignored by the stubborn Thomson and, reluctantly, Royal Navy forces annihilated American ports and shelled beaches with chemical and small nuclear rounds, rendering them incapable of receiving any ships.

China soon found itself cut off from its chief source of income. As Europe had stopped buying Chinese goods at the outbreak of war, China now had no way of obtaining money to run its war machine. The collapse was remarkably quick, India pushing China out of its territory entirely while Swedish and British air forces annihilated Chinese cities. America had halfheartedly declared war on Britain after the incident, but their ailing air force could not change the balance. In 2031, Beijing fell to the Three Powers, as they had become known. The Dragon War, as Roderick called it, was finally over. But it left behind an entire world smoldering and in ruins. Indian control of Pakistan was lost again. The Three Powers were unable to shoulder the burden of recovery, with America in shambles, setting the stage in a similar manner to how WWI led to WWII. What will happen next? Find out in episode 2 of Tomorrow!