sir_fire
Distinguished
How long has it been? How long? Some say it has been 10 years, a mere swipe of the pendulum... Some claim it was far shorter than that, as if it were only yesterday that everything seemed to make sense. But time is a fickle thing, never quite the immutable, inevitable thing that we all believed in as a law of the universe; but we now know better, how our eyes have been opened by the veil beyond...
Even so... It feels like no time at all has passed.
I long for the day when my hands will once again be flesh, to see and to feel as my brothers do, to be free of all my worries, my fears and my hopes even if only for a short while… But that day will be long and far away. With but a thought, I will the cogitator screen before me to rapidly shift channels and screens. For all the chaos caused by the so-called Amalgamation, normalcy seemingly returned to this world, unstable, perilous, yes. But an equilibrium nevertheless. Finding nothing interesting in the present, instead, I look into the past, bringing up archives of the earliest days of this catastrophe. Year Zero.
During the Amalgamation's dawn, every journalist and mass media entity was swarming with and against each other, like buzzing gnats, scrambling haphazardly to feast on a life taken by another. They all wanted their first-hand report of the daemonic surge, the day that hell itself had come to Earth, where the skies themselves bled, then shattered as kaleidoscopic lights and lightning danced across the bloodied firmament, painting it with impossible colors as the very legions of Hell marched to claim the souls of all that lived upon the Earth. Even now, it still amuses me to remember how little mankind was prepared despite all their armies, their weapons, and their technology against the hosts of the Empyrean: Spirits were crushed, more often than not literally, billions were slaughtered, cities were reduced to charnel houses and the Earth was poisoned by the touch of the Warp or burnt to cinders by the flames of war. But, in what they call a miracle; time and space somehow reasserted itself, as if the very universe demanded satisfaction against unreality's onslaught upon the physical world. Thus deprived of their power, the daemonic hosts were weakened and eventually banished from the face of the Earth and so Mankind lived through the darkest of nights and into the glorious dawn. Such a heroic and glorious tale for sure, but had it not taken any sooner than one year for space to return to normalcy, then only dust and echoes would have remained to bear witness to the sunrise...
Of course, such a monumental event warranted a new start, a Year Zero. And thus the first year of the Post-Amalgamation era came to a close. Despite all the death and destruction in the wake of what was Hell on Earth, hope filled the hearts of man and celebrations were held in honor of the living and in memory of the fallen... Oh, if they only had known better about what the future had in store for them…
The first and second of the plagues upon the Earth came as successive shocks. The first; an old foe, believed to have been driven from man's homestar by the ruination the Empyrean and its denizens brought: Beings of Extra Terrestrial origin which is Adversary to the human race... A name as long and ridiculous as those aliens are numerous, deadly, and difficult to exterminate. Much like a certain pair of races from the time I and my brothers hailed from, though with little of either's savage fury or mindless aggression, almost being machine-like in their mannerisms...
Regardless, mankind readied itself for the second wave, believing that they were now being perceived as a serious threat given that the invading xenos force was larger than their initial incursion so long ago and had directly made landfall on their planet rather than any other celestial body. Rather than meet the alien menace with resignation or horror, mankind instead met it with a bellicose manner, their eagerness due to the belief that in defeating the invaders a second time, through nothing but their own power that they might finally be rid of the BETA once and for all. This bout of nauseous optimism was not unfounded however, as the children of Terra were wholly ignorant of the true nature of the xenos invader, believing that the host imperiling their home was part of a major operation that can ill-afford to be lost. But the truth was, to those whose eyes can witness the eddies of fate or the sea of souls such as I, the BETA invasion was merely an infinitesimally small tendril of an unfathomably vast network whose breadth spanned across the very stars themselves. If mankind were not so convinced that they were the very center of the universe, they would've come to that conclusion, even as blind and ignorant as they are... Such foolish children.
If the BETA were the only enemy that had imperiled the dominion of man, perhaps the result could have been far more favorable, as for all the Amalgamation had taken from them, the various iterations and variants of humanity now populating the Earth had made them collectively stronger than the sum of their parts.
Now... I hardly believe in fair fights, in fact a fair fight in itself was damning evidence of a carefully laid plan gone awry or the lack of one. When an opportunity makes itself known, you must seize it with all your might, with absolutely no hesitation or mercy and letting no other thoughts cloud your mind other than victory and the achievement of your goals.
Perhaps this is what the second plague, this so-called 'Dinosaur Empire' thought after witnessing the mayhem brought by first the daemonic hosts and then the xenos swarm. I can practically taste the righteous fury and vengeful fervor that their leaders felt when I think about how they finalized their battle plans and mustered their legions for war…
And like a sudden storm, the antediluvian saurians declared their triumphant return to the surface they had once been master of as their armies ran rampant across the Mediterranean and South East Asia. Had you witnessed firsthand the chaos, as saurian and human soldiers slaughtered each other through the din of explosions, gunfire, barked orders and the screams of the dying and desperate, one might think war as nothing more than a wild, tumultuous melee.
But I, and anyone else initiated with the intricacies of warfare know oh so much better. I could spend hours picking apart the lesser details and the nuances of the tactics the Dinosaurs employed in their crusade to retake what they believed was their birthright. One thing is certain: There was a method into their warring madness. Each offensive, flanking maneuver, feigned retreat and encirclement they executed was planned cunningly, to drive back human forces at every turn.
I almost felt a pang of pity for mankind, to witness their desperate scrambling and the fearful, reactionary moves of their overwhelmed commanders as the Saurians achieved victory after victory as they took vast swathes of land. Truly it was a farce, to see how quickly mankind faltered before a foe that stood as their intellectual and military equals, even with the BETA hordes at the gates. But as the saying goes... Woe to the vanquished.
Yet final victory was ultimately to be denied to the Saurians, at least for the time being. When their most hated of foes, the Saotome Labs and their Getter Corps had also announced their return and intervened on behalf of mankind, where the power of the Getter Machines that they alone wielded; brought the dinosaur campaign to a screeching halt. The Getter Corps did not exactly beat the subterranean empire back through sheer force of arms, though it helped immensely, as their numbers were far too few. Instead, they denied the advance using the unknowable energies used by their mighty titans, these "Getter Rays", which were utterly inimical to the Saurians and their bio-mechanical legions, leaving whatever land they recently claimed or planned to claim poisonous, yet far less so for human habitation, scorched earth without the consequences. Yet another miracle for man…
But one miracle can only go so far, and while the saurians ultimately decided to cease in their advance to consolidate their already significant gains, the BETA was unrelenting in its drive to claim all of Europe and Asia; where not even the vastness of Russia was any real obstacle to them.
But you know how the saying goes about the cornered animal?
It was their last ditch effort to drive back the Xenos legion. One fine day, the men of Russia, pushed to the very edge of their country, on the border of some small, insignificant country... Hmmmm... Pole-Land was it? Moving on, the men of what had once been the largest nation on Earth made only a single warning to the Pole-men and their neighbors: "Leave or die with us." The brevity of the statement belied its sheer gravity as the Russians had gathered all of their remaining forces to make a last stand against the BETA horde, knowing full well that there would be no help from the nations to the West and thus resolved to die on their feet, as they sent their last generation to join in the diaspora of the Pole-men...
To say that it was a heroic and inspiring tale of defiance against an implacable enemy would be disingenuous; there was no glory, nor honor or dignity in it. It was Rage, rage and hatred; the furious death-spasms of a mortally-wounded beast attempting to take its killer with it. Such was the anger and bitter despair of the Russian people against not only the Xenos, but also of their awful fate, that one could swear that the mushroom clouds left in wake of their entire atomic arsenal being unleashed upon the densest concentrations of the BETA and upon their own heads bore twisting visages of apoplectic fury... Oh how little does one realize how close to the truth one really is…
Nevertheless, the rage and despair of the Russian had sown the seeds of hope and courage for the rest of Europe as enough of the alien had been culled in atomic fire to give time for mankind to prepare for the oncoming onslaught. To their credit, they weathered it quite well, even with their strength sapped from the Dinosaur Empire's campaign; thus after much bloodshed and sacrifice, a stalemate was forcibly made, with Pole-Land becoming a no-man's-land, sandwiched between Europe to the West and the BETA to the East.
While the Russians chose to meet their inevitable demise with a monumental act of spiteful defiance, such acts of resolve were by no means universal. The leaders that comprised the ruling elite of the former nation of China, the so-called "Chinese Party'', chose the route of cowardice and self-interest. The Russians, in their final hours, at least retained a level of lucidity to offer those uninvolved in their last stand a chance to depart and seek refuge elsewhere, a grace that the so-called People's Republic failed to offer its own citizens, for their collectivist mentality offers little such play to the considerations of the innocent bystander. Espousing such righteous ideals as "national pride", "determination" and "unity in strength", the party roused the common man with patriotic fire to resist the Xenos horde with all their might…
A beautiful lie, for the party knew that any such effort to resist was ultimately futile; for the data gathered by their intelligence on the numbers and capabilities of the BETA had signaled to them from the very beginning that, even with all their soldiers, weapons and machines; victory against the BETA was too ludicrous to even dream of achieving…
Thus when the lines inevitably gave way to the nigh-unending BETA hordes and the Chinese were steadily pushed towards the sea that they had for so long claimed was theirs alone, whose ownership would inevitably become undisputed as the watery grave of their entire civilization, the remnants of their once sizable army desperately turned to their leaders for answers and salvation; only to find that they had long fled the country and had left them with naught but the mercy of a quick death through nuclear hellfire over being devoured alive by the alien horrors…
Where did the Chinese Party and their most servile minions go? Why to a place as insignificant as their entire existence is, the one place where they would have some small measure of power, where they can still play at being Emperor: Africa.
While I could go on about what became of the Party's "leaders" and the few survivors who somehow made it off their doomed homeland, the scurrying of insignificant insects held no interest for me and that a far more important event had come to pass following the demise of China...
And to highlight such an important event, let us return focus to the immediate aftermath of the nuclear bombings. While Russia's sacrifice had brought salvation to Europe, this ultimately did very little to truly delay the BETA's plan in the grand scheme of things. Whatever alien intellect or instinct that guided the swarm was still trained on the prize that was denied of it, but acknowledged the reversal of its fortunes and chose to bide its time to recover the mass of its forces until the day comes where it could finish what it began, I imagine. Until then, as they were essentially walled off one of their options, the horde’s focus was turned elsewhere: The Bering Strait. As an all-consuming swarm of alien locusts are wont to do, they were already mobilizing for their invasion even as the wasteland of what had been China was still smoldering, utterly uncaring even after having been in the receiving end of humanity's display of nuclear force twice and taking none too insignificant losses in the process.
I imagine the reports of their advance through the strait to reach the Americas on their unending campaign to consume and conquer were acknowledged very quickly. If you had known about the response of the United States ahead of time that is…
Admittedly, back then, a part of me hadn't expected such a dramatic response, as I believed that the men of this age were not as consigned to suffering or ruthlessly pragmatic as the humanity I knew, but it is as they say: The third time's the charm. There was no long and elaborate battle to deter the BETA's advance through the strait, nor any 'heroic' tales of 'courage', 'duty' or 'honor' to be found anywhere. Authorization for a pre-emptive nuclear attack from the United States of America came as unceremoniously as an administrative report being filed. Just like that... Canada was the next great country to fall into ruin, more than half of its great cities and expansive wilderness were scoured in nuclear flame. There was little I could do but to clap at the irony of the United States denying the BETA's genocide of their own people by enacting one of their own. This surreal chain of events seemed just like a scene straight from a farcical comedy. After all, the BETA can't make an attempt at killing the humans if the humans kill each other first.
But it worked. The advancing BETA forces were wiped out and thus far, has not attempted another incursion on the American continent. However, such a monstrous act, no matter the motive or how effective the result, would not be without consequence.
The government of the 'United' States clearly failed to learn from China's actions. Had they not, perhaps the greatest superpower on the planet would have known much better than to play "follow the leader" with some of their greatest political rivals. For such a callous and amoral act, the perpetrator was destined to dive into a deep abyss of hatred and fury. An abyss that aptly represented the harsh plummet of popular support that ensued. Unsurprisingly, both the surviving populace of Canada and, overall, in the United States, were outraged, especially since they did not have any foreknowledge of the atrocity nor any say in the matter. I suspect that it was around this time of mass civil unrest and riots that the seeds of a coup were planted by a shadow organization, who currently call themselves the 'Epsilon Army'. It must have been. It would have been nearly impossible for anyone to take advantage of such violent public unrest as quickly as they have. No... They must have been preparing for such an eventuality years in advance…
But moving on...
It wasn't long before the Epsilon Army's coup achieved its peak. It was almost unbelievable to witness how quickly and thoroughly the American government crumbled, from the very highest echelons all the way to the provincial level, destroyed from the inside out by subterfuge and through the army's formerly unseen military assets along with some very powerful and secretive 'friends'. Though, I do find it interesting that a comparatively small number of bureaucrats, military officers and regional leaders were disposed of when the dust had settled, at least from what Epsilon publicly announced. Quite odd really, weren’t these Americans supposed to be vehemently against the idea of unelected leaders and living under the yoke of tyranny? Perhaps such lofty ideals of freedom and liberty were eroded to mere platitudes by the realities and horror of the Amalgamation and the desire for safety, security and certainty and of leaders that wouldn’t lie to their faces about holding their very lives in their hands in a world gone mad. And so, the third plague upon Mankind had come not from without but within.
You know the saying: “All good things come in threes”? Well, it seems a revision should be in order to include curses as well.
Regardless... The coup had far-reaching consequences to the Earth at large, for especially in a world at war, America had been the backbone of the Earth's economy and Epsilon's power play had disrupted what had been already a fluctuating, unstable thing; causing shortages of every sort of resource and necessities in all nations still under mankind's rule. With such immense pressure put upon them and still reeling from the simultaneous blows dealt upon them by the Saurian and Xeno, it is small wonder that the Neo European Union, or the "Free Pact Alliance" as they call themselves nowadays, put aside its longstanding rivalry with the Atlantic Federation; especially with the American government in exile in order to end the Epsilon army's madness. But mostly to secure their own precarious situation.
And so it was done. A video call over there, an email sent over here, a back-and-forth of encrypted communiques across the continents and in short order, the 'Earth Alliance' came to be. As the aerial battleships and naval carriers made the journey across the Atlantic, moving and allocating gargantuan amounts of men, materiel and machines to set the stage for the reconquest of North America, starting at the southern Mexican border. I must say that I was intrigued in the early beginnings of this great endeavor. With the military and political leaders of both great powers finally willing to formally unite in spite of their differences against a common enemy, I was curious to see what they would be capable of. Even if I knew too well that this 'Earth Alliance' would only last up until the Epsilon Army's banners would be torn down from the American capital.
For what it was worth, I was not entirely disappointed.
As the alliance's ranks swiftly sallied forth to meet the Epsilon Army's advance along the Mexican state of Chiapas, the combination of excellent planning, high cooperation and able leadership during the engagements along the Guatemalan border allowed the alliance to quickly seize the initiative and decisively repelled the Epsilon army's initial attempt at establishing a solid foothold in Central America. Significant victories were to be found in these early clashes and the news was spread all across the globe. In wake of such an event, the notion of 'hope', one that had been discarded and forgotten by the majority of the human race before the tribulations of the Amalgamation, started to once again bloom in the hearts of people. The morale of the Allied Forces was at an all time high, perhaps in anticipation to shift into the offensive phase of their campaign.
Of course, things going so well are more often than not too good to be true and so a prompt reversal of fortune would have come to pass eventually. Now, if you have lived as long as I have and seen the very breadth of the stars themselves, there are precious few that would leave an impression or come as a surprise. But I am glad to say that the commander of the Epsilon Army opposing the Earth Alliance invasion has shown me otherwise
For when the offensive phase of the alliance had finally begun, my interest had slowly waned. In all honesty, I thought I had already seen it all when the Epsilon's heavy losses in the border of Mexico and Guatemala had put a stop to their momentum like a tree against a raging storm. Our subject, the Epsilon commander going by the name of 'Cyrus', may have been granted full command of their defensive operations in the early stages of the alliance's counterattack. Despite being expected to do the impossible, to stand against two united superpowers and be expected to not only survive the oncoming tide but to drive it back in the name of his master, the man had stepped up to the task with no hesitation or fear whatsoever. Against the alliance's retaliatory onslaught, his plans were laid bare.
My interest in this man reached its peak only after the dust had settled. Cyrus took a massive gamble against his foe, an extremely respectable decision as only those that dare would see victory. His plan of splitting his forces into two armies and deliberately giving the enemy ground with a series of brief skirmishes, highly ordered retreats, and excellently planned ambushes were extremely risky as the threat of either one of his armies being encircled grew and grew with each mile given, but it would all eventually pay off as the main alliance forces fought their way into the coastal city of Coatzalcoalcos. In each engagement up until that point, their losses were well within acceptable parameters, especially given the Epsilon army’s dwindling numbers before their overwhelming might, and despite the efforts of their enemy to bleed them out, nothing that Epsilon did would ever be enough to put a halt to alliance’s unrelenting advance… All as Cyrus had hoped, for his enemies were becoming overconfident and nothing else is a more insidious killer.
The alliance marching into this coastal port city was a logical move at first glance. I imagine their intent was to defeat one of Cyrus' armies in detail and seize control of the city for use as a port for their fleets in order to set a blockade to shut the states of Tabasco, Campeche, and Yucatan away from the rest of Mexico. However, Cyrus surprised the world when he had his army dig in and reinforce the city in preparation for brutal urban warfare. At this, the Alliance’s morale reached its fever pitch: They finally had the rat cornered, although there would be a heavy toll to be paid in attacking the city head-on, the alliance could not afford to waste any time with a lengthy siege or to reduce it into ruins and with their commanders riding high off their victories, the order for a frontal assault was made. To his credit, Cyrus proved equally capable on the defense as he is in the mobile engagement, making the alliance pay for every single meter they took and reaping an unprecedented number of mech losses for a single battle in the entirety of the Amalgamation’s young history; in a single week, nearly a hundred TSFs, Mobile suits and Valiancers laid in ruin across the coast. Yet skill and grit can only hold out for so long before such lopsided odds and thus the Epsilon army was utterly decimated after half a month of near-unceasing combat. In a surprising show of restraint and honor, the ranking commander of the alliance forces offered the remaining Epsilon soldiers and their general the chance to surrender, to escape with their lives and dignity intact as they had conducted themselves with distinction in the field of battle, despite having turned their backs on their nation as it had become clear that most of Cyrus’ men were former American personnel.
His response was something that truly deserves to be immortalized in books for all time:
“Surrender? When I have already won?”
While his statement seemed like lunacy before his victorious foes, Cyrus’ words were quickly proven true when an entire fleet of submersible carriers and cruisers suddenly surfaced off the coast and buried the alliances’ lines with an avalanche of ordnance and then darkened the sky with entire wings of strike fighters and mechs graciously appropriated from the American military's strategic reserves before bearing down on their shocked and confused prey, running through their ranks like a scythe against chaff. Meanwhile, from the north, entire divisions materialized seemingly out of thin air as they made a mad dash towards both the coastal city and Oaxaca to relieve Cyrus’ beleaguered armies and drive out the alliance. Soon enough, the attackers suddenly found their once triumphant position utterly reversed as they were relentlessly battered and eventually sent into a rout by what in all accounts had been a phantom army and fleet. It was almost as if the Epsilon reinforcements had been summoned to the field through magic… While that wasn’t exactly untrue, it mattered little, as to the mastermind of this devious trap, everything had transpired according to his designs.
Indeed, such is the beauty of a plan coming together exactly as you had predicted. No other feeling comes close to the sheer bliss and satisfaction of witnessing your foe realizing they had been dancing in the palm of your hand from the very beginning…
Colloquial connotations refer to the battle of Coatzalcoalcos as 'the day the dream died'. An apt name given what had become of the campaign and of the bloody tally wrought by Epsilon in that battle… But that would only be the beginning.
As the Alliance was steadily driven back from the frontlines by the renewed Epsilon forces, Cyrus, quite a man of determination and daring; chose not to rest or retire even after having gone through such an ordeal. Instead, he seized the reins of command, as was his right; and continued pushing the attack. His intent was to turn his offensive into a stern pursuit with the intent of killing and capturing as much soldiers and war materiel as possible in order to utterly break the back of the Atlantic Federation’s military, thus securing Epsilon’s hegemony over the American continent. And he was successful. The bottlenecked position of the alliance’s main forces worked in his favor, brought by his foes’ own overextension. No matter where they tried to run during their hasty and poorly organized retreat, Epsilon was always there; the allied forces finding themselves being harried and run down from one pursuer into another like a wounded animal against hounds, suffering the highest amount of damage and casualties ever seen in the era of the Amalgamation in a single military campaign.
You ought to remember this: It is the easiest thing in the world to show yourself virtuous during times of plenty and success, proudly lauding yourself as just and honorable over every trial and ordeal. Yet it is only in adversary and peril when one’s true character comes to light and reveals to the world the depths and color of one’s soul.
What does this have to say about the Atlantic Federation? What kind of ‘hope’ did they preach about to the rest of mankind across the globe when they took the shameless decision of leaving their European allies behind to suffer a plethora of unimaginable deaths at the hands of the Epsilon and their esoteric technologies and limitless creativity for cruelty? To use the lives of their allies to insulate themselves from the mistake borne from their own pride? At the moment where they were needed the most nonetheless? The sudden retreat of the Americans came as a shocking declaration to not just their allies giving their best to cover as many retreats as possible often at the cost of their own lives, but to the entire world as the flower of the European military was mercilessly stamped into the ground, ruining an entire generation of its youth. The ones who died in battle were lucky, while they would never be heard from again; the bizarre and dangerous weapons wielded by Epsilon that combined the scientific and arcane along with the ravenous hordes of gene-forged monstrosities that they had revealed at this stage in the conflict paints a most unpleasant fate for any who would be unfortunate enough to be taken alive.
Yet even after all this, the Atlantic Federation’s order to abandon the Europeans was not universally acknowledged. Some stood their ground and fought against the oncoming tide, wanting to save as many as they could, be they American, European, or any other, others chose to stay behind, fighting to the bitter end with their battle-forged allies and a brave but foolish few took it upon themselves to cover for the Europeans in exchange for their own lives; showing that there was yet some nobility that remained in the Atlantic Federation’s ranks, but such events were the minority.
And thus driven all the way back to their starting line on Panama, the alliance bitterly accepted their defeat when Cyrus ran down their shameful rout across both ends of the vast Central American channel, relenting only when the Epsilon had reached the Panamanian-Colombian border. In his foresight and experience, Cyrus had realized that he was walking into the same trap he had baited the alliance forces into just weeks before, especially since the Epsilon navy still hadn’t finished seizing control of the Gulf of Mexico, let alone the Caribbean sea. Not to mention the possibility of Cuba, still under Atlantic Federation hegemony, being used as a rallying point for a counteroffensive dangerously looming over the horizon, threatening to cut off their means of retreat if given the opportunity. Thus, the Epsilon Army fell back to Panama City, destroying any infrastructure along their way, and began the arduous task of turning the capital into a fortress-city, as they knew full well that their victory over the Alliance was only the beginning and that the Americans will never stop until they or Epsilon are destroyed.
As Epsilon secured their border, the Atlantic Federation's own was starting to shift as well, the aforementioned lack of universal acknowledgment following in the wake of betrayal of their now-former allies had extreme repercussions, aside from the obvious and immediate cessation of any further joint campaigns or any form of military support and cooperation between the Atlantic Federation and the European Union. I do not know much of the intricacies and internal tensions within the Atlantic Federation’s ranks, but all of that coming to a head created a schism that threatened to bring the Federation to the brink of civil war, anarchy, and collapse. Ultimately, cooler heads prevailed before things could spiral out of control and a compromise was reached over internecine strife: Thus the three main branches of the Atlantic Federation military: The Air Force, the Army, and the Navy, each representing an iteration of America from another world; all splintered off into their own self-contained and self-sufficient entities before swearing to never take up arms against each other while America remained occupied. Thus the Atlantic Federation as a unified entity ceased to be, and in its place were three new power blocs. I suppose armed conflict was only averted due to the fact that Epsilon would be all too eager to stab the “winner” in the back once the dust had settled.
And so the play goes on... Not much has happened in the two years ever since the Atlantic Federation’s dismemberment; lesser skirmishes between the BETA, humanity, and the saurians were endemic all over Europe and Asia, but with little accomplished besides a few measly gains and all too brief salients that were soon pushed back, bringing forth today’s equilibrium… But in a world so changed and still doing so, normalcy and calm are ever so ephemeral and another great upheaval is just around the corner, I can feel- No, I know it is coming…
But until then, the first decade of the Post-Amalgamation era draws to a close. It is a time of chaos and uncertainty, of war and conquest, of horror and innovation, Of danger and of opportunity… And things couldn’t be any better...
Even so... It feels like no time at all has passed.
I long for the day when my hands will once again be flesh, to see and to feel as my brothers do, to be free of all my worries, my fears and my hopes even if only for a short while… But that day will be long and far away. With but a thought, I will the cogitator screen before me to rapidly shift channels and screens. For all the chaos caused by the so-called Amalgamation, normalcy seemingly returned to this world, unstable, perilous, yes. But an equilibrium nevertheless. Finding nothing interesting in the present, instead, I look into the past, bringing up archives of the earliest days of this catastrophe. Year Zero.
During the Amalgamation's dawn, every journalist and mass media entity was swarming with and against each other, like buzzing gnats, scrambling haphazardly to feast on a life taken by another. They all wanted their first-hand report of the daemonic surge, the day that hell itself had come to Earth, where the skies themselves bled, then shattered as kaleidoscopic lights and lightning danced across the bloodied firmament, painting it with impossible colors as the very legions of Hell marched to claim the souls of all that lived upon the Earth. Even now, it still amuses me to remember how little mankind was prepared despite all their armies, their weapons, and their technology against the hosts of the Empyrean: Spirits were crushed, more often than not literally, billions were slaughtered, cities were reduced to charnel houses and the Earth was poisoned by the touch of the Warp or burnt to cinders by the flames of war. But, in what they call a miracle; time and space somehow reasserted itself, as if the very universe demanded satisfaction against unreality's onslaught upon the physical world. Thus deprived of their power, the daemonic hosts were weakened and eventually banished from the face of the Earth and so Mankind lived through the darkest of nights and into the glorious dawn. Such a heroic and glorious tale for sure, but had it not taken any sooner than one year for space to return to normalcy, then only dust and echoes would have remained to bear witness to the sunrise...
Of course, such a monumental event warranted a new start, a Year Zero. And thus the first year of the Post-Amalgamation era came to a close. Despite all the death and destruction in the wake of what was Hell on Earth, hope filled the hearts of man and celebrations were held in honor of the living and in memory of the fallen... Oh, if they only had known better about what the future had in store for them…
The first and second of the plagues upon the Earth came as successive shocks. The first; an old foe, believed to have been driven from man's homestar by the ruination the Empyrean and its denizens brought: Beings of Extra Terrestrial origin which is Adversary to the human race... A name as long and ridiculous as those aliens are numerous, deadly, and difficult to exterminate. Much like a certain pair of races from the time I and my brothers hailed from, though with little of either's savage fury or mindless aggression, almost being machine-like in their mannerisms...
Regardless, mankind readied itself for the second wave, believing that they were now being perceived as a serious threat given that the invading xenos force was larger than their initial incursion so long ago and had directly made landfall on their planet rather than any other celestial body. Rather than meet the alien menace with resignation or horror, mankind instead met it with a bellicose manner, their eagerness due to the belief that in defeating the invaders a second time, through nothing but their own power that they might finally be rid of the BETA once and for all. This bout of nauseous optimism was not unfounded however, as the children of Terra were wholly ignorant of the true nature of the xenos invader, believing that the host imperiling their home was part of a major operation that can ill-afford to be lost. But the truth was, to those whose eyes can witness the eddies of fate or the sea of souls such as I, the BETA invasion was merely an infinitesimally small tendril of an unfathomably vast network whose breadth spanned across the very stars themselves. If mankind were not so convinced that they were the very center of the universe, they would've come to that conclusion, even as blind and ignorant as they are... Such foolish children.
If the BETA were the only enemy that had imperiled the dominion of man, perhaps the result could have been far more favorable, as for all the Amalgamation had taken from them, the various iterations and variants of humanity now populating the Earth had made them collectively stronger than the sum of their parts.
Now... I hardly believe in fair fights, in fact a fair fight in itself was damning evidence of a carefully laid plan gone awry or the lack of one. When an opportunity makes itself known, you must seize it with all your might, with absolutely no hesitation or mercy and letting no other thoughts cloud your mind other than victory and the achievement of your goals.
Perhaps this is what the second plague, this so-called 'Dinosaur Empire' thought after witnessing the mayhem brought by first the daemonic hosts and then the xenos swarm. I can practically taste the righteous fury and vengeful fervor that their leaders felt when I think about how they finalized their battle plans and mustered their legions for war…
And like a sudden storm, the antediluvian saurians declared their triumphant return to the surface they had once been master of as their armies ran rampant across the Mediterranean and South East Asia. Had you witnessed firsthand the chaos, as saurian and human soldiers slaughtered each other through the din of explosions, gunfire, barked orders and the screams of the dying and desperate, one might think war as nothing more than a wild, tumultuous melee.
But I, and anyone else initiated with the intricacies of warfare know oh so much better. I could spend hours picking apart the lesser details and the nuances of the tactics the Dinosaurs employed in their crusade to retake what they believed was their birthright. One thing is certain: There was a method into their warring madness. Each offensive, flanking maneuver, feigned retreat and encirclement they executed was planned cunningly, to drive back human forces at every turn.
I almost felt a pang of pity for mankind, to witness their desperate scrambling and the fearful, reactionary moves of their overwhelmed commanders as the Saurians achieved victory after victory as they took vast swathes of land. Truly it was a farce, to see how quickly mankind faltered before a foe that stood as their intellectual and military equals, even with the BETA hordes at the gates. But as the saying goes... Woe to the vanquished.
Yet final victory was ultimately to be denied to the Saurians, at least for the time being. When their most hated of foes, the Saotome Labs and their Getter Corps had also announced their return and intervened on behalf of mankind, where the power of the Getter Machines that they alone wielded; brought the dinosaur campaign to a screeching halt. The Getter Corps did not exactly beat the subterranean empire back through sheer force of arms, though it helped immensely, as their numbers were far too few. Instead, they denied the advance using the unknowable energies used by their mighty titans, these "Getter Rays", which were utterly inimical to the Saurians and their bio-mechanical legions, leaving whatever land they recently claimed or planned to claim poisonous, yet far less so for human habitation, scorched earth without the consequences. Yet another miracle for man…
But one miracle can only go so far, and while the saurians ultimately decided to cease in their advance to consolidate their already significant gains, the BETA was unrelenting in its drive to claim all of Europe and Asia; where not even the vastness of Russia was any real obstacle to them.
But you know how the saying goes about the cornered animal?
It was their last ditch effort to drive back the Xenos legion. One fine day, the men of Russia, pushed to the very edge of their country, on the border of some small, insignificant country... Hmmmm... Pole-Land was it? Moving on, the men of what had once been the largest nation on Earth made only a single warning to the Pole-men and their neighbors: "Leave or die with us." The brevity of the statement belied its sheer gravity as the Russians had gathered all of their remaining forces to make a last stand against the BETA horde, knowing full well that there would be no help from the nations to the West and thus resolved to die on their feet, as they sent their last generation to join in the diaspora of the Pole-men...
To say that it was a heroic and inspiring tale of defiance against an implacable enemy would be disingenuous; there was no glory, nor honor or dignity in it. It was Rage, rage and hatred; the furious death-spasms of a mortally-wounded beast attempting to take its killer with it. Such was the anger and bitter despair of the Russian people against not only the Xenos, but also of their awful fate, that one could swear that the mushroom clouds left in wake of their entire atomic arsenal being unleashed upon the densest concentrations of the BETA and upon their own heads bore twisting visages of apoplectic fury... Oh how little does one realize how close to the truth one really is…
Nevertheless, the rage and despair of the Russian had sown the seeds of hope and courage for the rest of Europe as enough of the alien had been culled in atomic fire to give time for mankind to prepare for the oncoming onslaught. To their credit, they weathered it quite well, even with their strength sapped from the Dinosaur Empire's campaign; thus after much bloodshed and sacrifice, a stalemate was forcibly made, with Pole-Land becoming a no-man's-land, sandwiched between Europe to the West and the BETA to the East.
While the Russians chose to meet their inevitable demise with a monumental act of spiteful defiance, such acts of resolve were by no means universal. The leaders that comprised the ruling elite of the former nation of China, the so-called "Chinese Party'', chose the route of cowardice and self-interest. The Russians, in their final hours, at least retained a level of lucidity to offer those uninvolved in their last stand a chance to depart and seek refuge elsewhere, a grace that the so-called People's Republic failed to offer its own citizens, for their collectivist mentality offers little such play to the considerations of the innocent bystander. Espousing such righteous ideals as "national pride", "determination" and "unity in strength", the party roused the common man with patriotic fire to resist the Xenos horde with all their might…
A beautiful lie, for the party knew that any such effort to resist was ultimately futile; for the data gathered by their intelligence on the numbers and capabilities of the BETA had signaled to them from the very beginning that, even with all their soldiers, weapons and machines; victory against the BETA was too ludicrous to even dream of achieving…
Thus when the lines inevitably gave way to the nigh-unending BETA hordes and the Chinese were steadily pushed towards the sea that they had for so long claimed was theirs alone, whose ownership would inevitably become undisputed as the watery grave of their entire civilization, the remnants of their once sizable army desperately turned to their leaders for answers and salvation; only to find that they had long fled the country and had left them with naught but the mercy of a quick death through nuclear hellfire over being devoured alive by the alien horrors…
Where did the Chinese Party and their most servile minions go? Why to a place as insignificant as their entire existence is, the one place where they would have some small measure of power, where they can still play at being Emperor: Africa.
While I could go on about what became of the Party's "leaders" and the few survivors who somehow made it off their doomed homeland, the scurrying of insignificant insects held no interest for me and that a far more important event had come to pass following the demise of China...
And to highlight such an important event, let us return focus to the immediate aftermath of the nuclear bombings. While Russia's sacrifice had brought salvation to Europe, this ultimately did very little to truly delay the BETA's plan in the grand scheme of things. Whatever alien intellect or instinct that guided the swarm was still trained on the prize that was denied of it, but acknowledged the reversal of its fortunes and chose to bide its time to recover the mass of its forces until the day comes where it could finish what it began, I imagine. Until then, as they were essentially walled off one of their options, the horde’s focus was turned elsewhere: The Bering Strait. As an all-consuming swarm of alien locusts are wont to do, they were already mobilizing for their invasion even as the wasteland of what had been China was still smoldering, utterly uncaring even after having been in the receiving end of humanity's display of nuclear force twice and taking none too insignificant losses in the process.
I imagine the reports of their advance through the strait to reach the Americas on their unending campaign to consume and conquer were acknowledged very quickly. If you had known about the response of the United States ahead of time that is…
Admittedly, back then, a part of me hadn't expected such a dramatic response, as I believed that the men of this age were not as consigned to suffering or ruthlessly pragmatic as the humanity I knew, but it is as they say: The third time's the charm. There was no long and elaborate battle to deter the BETA's advance through the strait, nor any 'heroic' tales of 'courage', 'duty' or 'honor' to be found anywhere. Authorization for a pre-emptive nuclear attack from the United States of America came as unceremoniously as an administrative report being filed. Just like that... Canada was the next great country to fall into ruin, more than half of its great cities and expansive wilderness were scoured in nuclear flame. There was little I could do but to clap at the irony of the United States denying the BETA's genocide of their own people by enacting one of their own. This surreal chain of events seemed just like a scene straight from a farcical comedy. After all, the BETA can't make an attempt at killing the humans if the humans kill each other first.
But it worked. The advancing BETA forces were wiped out and thus far, has not attempted another incursion on the American continent. However, such a monstrous act, no matter the motive or how effective the result, would not be without consequence.
The government of the 'United' States clearly failed to learn from China's actions. Had they not, perhaps the greatest superpower on the planet would have known much better than to play "follow the leader" with some of their greatest political rivals. For such a callous and amoral act, the perpetrator was destined to dive into a deep abyss of hatred and fury. An abyss that aptly represented the harsh plummet of popular support that ensued. Unsurprisingly, both the surviving populace of Canada and, overall, in the United States, were outraged, especially since they did not have any foreknowledge of the atrocity nor any say in the matter. I suspect that it was around this time of mass civil unrest and riots that the seeds of a coup were planted by a shadow organization, who currently call themselves the 'Epsilon Army'. It must have been. It would have been nearly impossible for anyone to take advantage of such violent public unrest as quickly as they have. No... They must have been preparing for such an eventuality years in advance…
But moving on...
It wasn't long before the Epsilon Army's coup achieved its peak. It was almost unbelievable to witness how quickly and thoroughly the American government crumbled, from the very highest echelons all the way to the provincial level, destroyed from the inside out by subterfuge and through the army's formerly unseen military assets along with some very powerful and secretive 'friends'. Though, I do find it interesting that a comparatively small number of bureaucrats, military officers and regional leaders were disposed of when the dust had settled, at least from what Epsilon publicly announced. Quite odd really, weren’t these Americans supposed to be vehemently against the idea of unelected leaders and living under the yoke of tyranny? Perhaps such lofty ideals of freedom and liberty were eroded to mere platitudes by the realities and horror of the Amalgamation and the desire for safety, security and certainty and of leaders that wouldn’t lie to their faces about holding their very lives in their hands in a world gone mad. And so, the third plague upon Mankind had come not from without but within.
You know the saying: “All good things come in threes”? Well, it seems a revision should be in order to include curses as well.
Regardless... The coup had far-reaching consequences to the Earth at large, for especially in a world at war, America had been the backbone of the Earth's economy and Epsilon's power play had disrupted what had been already a fluctuating, unstable thing; causing shortages of every sort of resource and necessities in all nations still under mankind's rule. With such immense pressure put upon them and still reeling from the simultaneous blows dealt upon them by the Saurian and Xeno, it is small wonder that the Neo European Union, or the "Free Pact Alliance" as they call themselves nowadays, put aside its longstanding rivalry with the Atlantic Federation; especially with the American government in exile in order to end the Epsilon army's madness. But mostly to secure their own precarious situation.
And so it was done. A video call over there, an email sent over here, a back-and-forth of encrypted communiques across the continents and in short order, the 'Earth Alliance' came to be. As the aerial battleships and naval carriers made the journey across the Atlantic, moving and allocating gargantuan amounts of men, materiel and machines to set the stage for the reconquest of North America, starting at the southern Mexican border. I must say that I was intrigued in the early beginnings of this great endeavor. With the military and political leaders of both great powers finally willing to formally unite in spite of their differences against a common enemy, I was curious to see what they would be capable of. Even if I knew too well that this 'Earth Alliance' would only last up until the Epsilon Army's banners would be torn down from the American capital.
For what it was worth, I was not entirely disappointed.
As the alliance's ranks swiftly sallied forth to meet the Epsilon Army's advance along the Mexican state of Chiapas, the combination of excellent planning, high cooperation and able leadership during the engagements along the Guatemalan border allowed the alliance to quickly seize the initiative and decisively repelled the Epsilon army's initial attempt at establishing a solid foothold in Central America. Significant victories were to be found in these early clashes and the news was spread all across the globe. In wake of such an event, the notion of 'hope', one that had been discarded and forgotten by the majority of the human race before the tribulations of the Amalgamation, started to once again bloom in the hearts of people. The morale of the Allied Forces was at an all time high, perhaps in anticipation to shift into the offensive phase of their campaign.
Of course, things going so well are more often than not too good to be true and so a prompt reversal of fortune would have come to pass eventually. Now, if you have lived as long as I have and seen the very breadth of the stars themselves, there are precious few that would leave an impression or come as a surprise. But I am glad to say that the commander of the Epsilon Army opposing the Earth Alliance invasion has shown me otherwise
For when the offensive phase of the alliance had finally begun, my interest had slowly waned. In all honesty, I thought I had already seen it all when the Epsilon's heavy losses in the border of Mexico and Guatemala had put a stop to their momentum like a tree against a raging storm. Our subject, the Epsilon commander going by the name of 'Cyrus', may have been granted full command of their defensive operations in the early stages of the alliance's counterattack. Despite being expected to do the impossible, to stand against two united superpowers and be expected to not only survive the oncoming tide but to drive it back in the name of his master, the man had stepped up to the task with no hesitation or fear whatsoever. Against the alliance's retaliatory onslaught, his plans were laid bare.
My interest in this man reached its peak only after the dust had settled. Cyrus took a massive gamble against his foe, an extremely respectable decision as only those that dare would see victory. His plan of splitting his forces into two armies and deliberately giving the enemy ground with a series of brief skirmishes, highly ordered retreats, and excellently planned ambushes were extremely risky as the threat of either one of his armies being encircled grew and grew with each mile given, but it would all eventually pay off as the main alliance forces fought their way into the coastal city of Coatzalcoalcos. In each engagement up until that point, their losses were well within acceptable parameters, especially given the Epsilon army’s dwindling numbers before their overwhelming might, and despite the efforts of their enemy to bleed them out, nothing that Epsilon did would ever be enough to put a halt to alliance’s unrelenting advance… All as Cyrus had hoped, for his enemies were becoming overconfident and nothing else is a more insidious killer.
The alliance marching into this coastal port city was a logical move at first glance. I imagine their intent was to defeat one of Cyrus' armies in detail and seize control of the city for use as a port for their fleets in order to set a blockade to shut the states of Tabasco, Campeche, and Yucatan away from the rest of Mexico. However, Cyrus surprised the world when he had his army dig in and reinforce the city in preparation for brutal urban warfare. At this, the Alliance’s morale reached its fever pitch: They finally had the rat cornered, although there would be a heavy toll to be paid in attacking the city head-on, the alliance could not afford to waste any time with a lengthy siege or to reduce it into ruins and with their commanders riding high off their victories, the order for a frontal assault was made. To his credit, Cyrus proved equally capable on the defense as he is in the mobile engagement, making the alliance pay for every single meter they took and reaping an unprecedented number of mech losses for a single battle in the entirety of the Amalgamation’s young history; in a single week, nearly a hundred TSFs, Mobile suits and Valiancers laid in ruin across the coast. Yet skill and grit can only hold out for so long before such lopsided odds and thus the Epsilon army was utterly decimated after half a month of near-unceasing combat. In a surprising show of restraint and honor, the ranking commander of the alliance forces offered the remaining Epsilon soldiers and their general the chance to surrender, to escape with their lives and dignity intact as they had conducted themselves with distinction in the field of battle, despite having turned their backs on their nation as it had become clear that most of Cyrus’ men were former American personnel.
His response was something that truly deserves to be immortalized in books for all time:
“Surrender? When I have already won?”
While his statement seemed like lunacy before his victorious foes, Cyrus’ words were quickly proven true when an entire fleet of submersible carriers and cruisers suddenly surfaced off the coast and buried the alliances’ lines with an avalanche of ordnance and then darkened the sky with entire wings of strike fighters and mechs graciously appropriated from the American military's strategic reserves before bearing down on their shocked and confused prey, running through their ranks like a scythe against chaff. Meanwhile, from the north, entire divisions materialized seemingly out of thin air as they made a mad dash towards both the coastal city and Oaxaca to relieve Cyrus’ beleaguered armies and drive out the alliance. Soon enough, the attackers suddenly found their once triumphant position utterly reversed as they were relentlessly battered and eventually sent into a rout by what in all accounts had been a phantom army and fleet. It was almost as if the Epsilon reinforcements had been summoned to the field through magic… While that wasn’t exactly untrue, it mattered little, as to the mastermind of this devious trap, everything had transpired according to his designs.
Indeed, such is the beauty of a plan coming together exactly as you had predicted. No other feeling comes close to the sheer bliss and satisfaction of witnessing your foe realizing they had been dancing in the palm of your hand from the very beginning…
Colloquial connotations refer to the battle of Coatzalcoalcos as 'the day the dream died'. An apt name given what had become of the campaign and of the bloody tally wrought by Epsilon in that battle… But that would only be the beginning.
As the Alliance was steadily driven back from the frontlines by the renewed Epsilon forces, Cyrus, quite a man of determination and daring; chose not to rest or retire even after having gone through such an ordeal. Instead, he seized the reins of command, as was his right; and continued pushing the attack. His intent was to turn his offensive into a stern pursuit with the intent of killing and capturing as much soldiers and war materiel as possible in order to utterly break the back of the Atlantic Federation’s military, thus securing Epsilon’s hegemony over the American continent. And he was successful. The bottlenecked position of the alliance’s main forces worked in his favor, brought by his foes’ own overextension. No matter where they tried to run during their hasty and poorly organized retreat, Epsilon was always there; the allied forces finding themselves being harried and run down from one pursuer into another like a wounded animal against hounds, suffering the highest amount of damage and casualties ever seen in the era of the Amalgamation in a single military campaign.
You ought to remember this: It is the easiest thing in the world to show yourself virtuous during times of plenty and success, proudly lauding yourself as just and honorable over every trial and ordeal. Yet it is only in adversary and peril when one’s true character comes to light and reveals to the world the depths and color of one’s soul.
What does this have to say about the Atlantic Federation? What kind of ‘hope’ did they preach about to the rest of mankind across the globe when they took the shameless decision of leaving their European allies behind to suffer a plethora of unimaginable deaths at the hands of the Epsilon and their esoteric technologies and limitless creativity for cruelty? To use the lives of their allies to insulate themselves from the mistake borne from their own pride? At the moment where they were needed the most nonetheless? The sudden retreat of the Americans came as a shocking declaration to not just their allies giving their best to cover as many retreats as possible often at the cost of their own lives, but to the entire world as the flower of the European military was mercilessly stamped into the ground, ruining an entire generation of its youth. The ones who died in battle were lucky, while they would never be heard from again; the bizarre and dangerous weapons wielded by Epsilon that combined the scientific and arcane along with the ravenous hordes of gene-forged monstrosities that they had revealed at this stage in the conflict paints a most unpleasant fate for any who would be unfortunate enough to be taken alive.
Yet even after all this, the Atlantic Federation’s order to abandon the Europeans was not universally acknowledged. Some stood their ground and fought against the oncoming tide, wanting to save as many as they could, be they American, European, or any other, others chose to stay behind, fighting to the bitter end with their battle-forged allies and a brave but foolish few took it upon themselves to cover for the Europeans in exchange for their own lives; showing that there was yet some nobility that remained in the Atlantic Federation’s ranks, but such events were the minority.
And thus driven all the way back to their starting line on Panama, the alliance bitterly accepted their defeat when Cyrus ran down their shameful rout across both ends of the vast Central American channel, relenting only when the Epsilon had reached the Panamanian-Colombian border. In his foresight and experience, Cyrus had realized that he was walking into the same trap he had baited the alliance forces into just weeks before, especially since the Epsilon navy still hadn’t finished seizing control of the Gulf of Mexico, let alone the Caribbean sea. Not to mention the possibility of Cuba, still under Atlantic Federation hegemony, being used as a rallying point for a counteroffensive dangerously looming over the horizon, threatening to cut off their means of retreat if given the opportunity. Thus, the Epsilon Army fell back to Panama City, destroying any infrastructure along their way, and began the arduous task of turning the capital into a fortress-city, as they knew full well that their victory over the Alliance was only the beginning and that the Americans will never stop until they or Epsilon are destroyed.
As Epsilon secured their border, the Atlantic Federation's own was starting to shift as well, the aforementioned lack of universal acknowledgment following in the wake of betrayal of their now-former allies had extreme repercussions, aside from the obvious and immediate cessation of any further joint campaigns or any form of military support and cooperation between the Atlantic Federation and the European Union. I do not know much of the intricacies and internal tensions within the Atlantic Federation’s ranks, but all of that coming to a head created a schism that threatened to bring the Federation to the brink of civil war, anarchy, and collapse. Ultimately, cooler heads prevailed before things could spiral out of control and a compromise was reached over internecine strife: Thus the three main branches of the Atlantic Federation military: The Air Force, the Army, and the Navy, each representing an iteration of America from another world; all splintered off into their own self-contained and self-sufficient entities before swearing to never take up arms against each other while America remained occupied. Thus the Atlantic Federation as a unified entity ceased to be, and in its place were three new power blocs. I suppose armed conflict was only averted due to the fact that Epsilon would be all too eager to stab the “winner” in the back once the dust had settled.
And so the play goes on... Not much has happened in the two years ever since the Atlantic Federation’s dismemberment; lesser skirmishes between the BETA, humanity, and the saurians were endemic all over Europe and Asia, but with little accomplished besides a few measly gains and all too brief salients that were soon pushed back, bringing forth today’s equilibrium… But in a world so changed and still doing so, normalcy and calm are ever so ephemeral and another great upheaval is just around the corner, I can feel- No, I know it is coming…
But until then, the first decade of the Post-Amalgamation era draws to a close. It is a time of chaos and uncertainty, of war and conquest, of horror and innovation, Of danger and of opportunity… And things couldn’t be any better...
