The way the world can change in a century is astounding, no? The 20th century saw the rise and fall of empires, of ideologies and cultures in the course of a few generations. The permanence of the world lived in hasn’t been granted for centuries now, for it is the year 2325, and the world we live in is vastly different from what people lived in at the turn of the millennium. To understand how the world has changed, you must know the history of the old order.

In the early 21st century, there were only probes on other worlds than earth, with manned missions to other planets not occurring until 2030. However, with the advancement of industrial technologies came the cheaper price at which rockets, and later spacecraft, could be manufacturing. However, the biggest revolution in the 21st century had to be in the biotech industries, for life itself begun to become programmable. Habitation technologies improved dramatically as tailor made food products to live off world made permanent research centers on other worlds attainable. The build up of solar infrastructure, thanks to technologies invented in the 21st century revolutionized where humans could habitat. Even worlds as hostile to humans as Venus would have ways to be built up as areas for civilian access. The colonies themselves weren’t initially intended to have humans calling them home, more places to gain access to solar resources, space tourism and research. Yet, as more people worked off world the colonies grew as children from those at the colonies for long periods of times stuck to the world instead of returning to earth.

Earth itself was increasingly connected, with the blooming of multiple countries on the planet causing the increased needs for ever greater energy, especially as automation of numerous industries led to mass unemployment to the point where the majority of people by the 22nd century spent their time free from hard labor. However, the sustainability of such high standard of living for the 8.3 billion people living on earth came with a cost, as the amount of water in the world that was drinkable struggled to keep up with the amount of vertical farms needed to sustain the global market. Much the world at the time was not free, however, for there was a global aristocracy that went unchallenged by most of the world thanks to not only the bread and circus, but also due to their high positions that came as a result of being the controllers of the robots that maintained much of the world’s infrastructure, assisted by the fact automated militaries made them near-impossible for civilians to topple.

The economic apparatus that made the world function for over a century would be completely compromised in 2082, not from without, but from within. A massive plague broke out from the failure of antibiotics or nanotechnology to handle what was created in a lab, the free trade much the world had at the time causing tons of people to die in just a day after contracting the disease. The plague lasted for a decade, and is there were attempts to reform the system, but these attempts to alter the very economic fabric of the world led to serious ideological divisions in the global aristocracy that also clashed with the newly forming super-states whom developed from supranationalist ideals that drove over old ideas of nationalism. The EU, for instance would become federalized and later connect with much of the middle east, north africa, china along with northern and central asia. This super state would in the coming decades become known as 'United Eurasia'. There was four other super states, including the Pacific Directorate which dominated much of the Pacific and included most of the Americas. In short, these states were massive and had the economic weight and bureaucratic power to dominate numerous and vastly different cultures across billions of people.

The clash would cause the global system to collapse to the point where trade connections were limited at best despite having underground networks around the globe to transport resources. The physical meeting of other people being highly restricted and often requiring multiple tests to even step out of a superstate. This affected the off-world colonies the most, as while isolated to a high degree before the plagues, after the plagues people off world were banned from returning to earth. The people on the colonies would still get supply shipments in return for infrastructural support, however the colonies became progressively more self-sustaining due to having less support from earth than in the past.

For the old order, made of super-states would become increasingly more authoritarian as terrorism increased dramatically for a decade, of which in of itself caused even more terrorism to spring about with virtual worlds being compromised on a regular basis. However dissent was minimal on the whole due to the bread and circus, as well as the state apparatus being hard to break in the most developed of countries. There was a confederate world order that did exist at this time, but it wasn’t unified with super states maintaining their own government and military alongside the planetary peacekeeping forces designed to keep things in check. Things became stable, but stagnant from a innovation stand point [the colonization of sol continuing just fine, with perhaps even more investment than before due to the need to extract off-world resources]. The innovativeness of Terrans declined, with the only major revolutionary innovation in the 22nd being the use of Fusion power.

This system lasted for decades, but ultimately fell apart as the system didn’t try to address the issues of the world ecology that was going increasingly out of whack, nor the increasingly aggressive sentiments shown in super states that wanted to rid the world of tiny, useless provincial states like kurdistan through conquest, which in a several instances each super state actually did, despite the other super states condemning the conquests. Eventually resource control on earth started to drain out, with off-world resource centers becoming a major dependency for the world, especially for rare-earth metals. Yet the need for water was far more pressing, as the whole world relied on vast quantities of arable land and water, which was becoming increasing more scarce despite Russia thawing out and becoming a bit of a breadbasket in the 22nd century.

These resource limitations caused Terran civilization to, for decades look as if it was frozen until the mass death occurred in the mid 22nd century. For the stagnation of earth became a serious concern to those at top, of whom wanted to try to consolidate earth to the point of becoming a global, unitary body and the elites who wanted to go back to the more globalized system that was far less restrictive. Despite the similarities of the ideals, this ideological conflict became a second cold war that went on for decades until one of the super states had the confidence it could conquer the world using its vast armies.

The militarization of the Terran super states at first was seen as something hat wouldn’t lead to any disaster, since after all despite there being the occasional tactical nuke used in a war somewhere on the planet civilization never stopped moving forwards. So many citizens in super states were actually very apathetic to the militarization, with some of them seeing it as just another creative outlet since now there’s a reason to make machines of war. The ascension of AI in the time would caused for a unexpected consequence, as the pivotal super state of the United Eurasia had a exceptionally powerful military with European innovation combined with Chinese industry along with Russian determination. To the shock of the other super states, using its pivotal part of the world which for centuries was theorized as the point to control the whole world, went about on a global crusade convinced their defense systems ruled out the possibility of WMD retaliation, despite evidence to the contrary.

But they didn’t factor in the infrastructural damage they would cause, and the damage that would be wrought on their own civilization when the other super states united against the would-be world conquerors, who made use of bioweapons that spread throughout the communications systems that would completely impair the conquers, but not before they occupied much of the world and already was beginning to plan bringing the off-world colonies into their fold. However, their unified government lasted only two years as strikes against the capital of their world government killed off the leader ship and brought anarchy to the whole world as multiple military generals left over from the United Eurasian military wiped each other out.

The bio plagues from earlier surged throughout much of the two year-lasting world government, killing off billions of people as famines and droughts caused by the automation distribution systems falling completely apart and salinity plants being shut down without funding led to there being no real states left on earth. The earth’s human population shot down to just a hundred million people with the only civilization left being in isolated city-states bunkered down in the earth.

Without much food and much of the cities being looted or irradiated neotribalism became common in much of the planet, but unified states would start to appear again using knowledge stored in underground libraries and data centers to make the cheaper technologies, however the more advanced technologies such as rockets or fusion plants would take a lot more infrastructural demand to create. The geography of the world, altered by the orbital bombardments and flooding would make some of the metropolis into sites of vast ruin and the ecology of the world would be dramatically altered by the abrupt temperature changes along with the dark decade. The dark decade essentially was a nuclear winter that caused mass extinction as bad as the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs.

By 2334, the world remains green. Humans still existed and there are factions on earth whom have recently been building back up once more in a world where global civilization had launched humanity beyond earth, but had regressed from a elite that was too powerful for their own good and tragically collapsed.

Now there is interplanetary powers descended from the off world colonies that seek to colonize earth, despite those who still live on it.

The Homeland Security force is responsible for both the defense and policing of the Imperial Republic's territories and holdings. They are tasked with defending and keeping the civilian population under control from threats both internal and external, often by most thuggish members with heavy surveillance and cruelty. Whilst they're less heavily armed then their Army counterparts, the men and women of the HSF are more then capable to respond to any incident with vigilance and are not a force to be taken very lightly.

HSF Trooper


HSF Trooper in Riot Gear


HSF Officer

The very core of the Imperial Military, the American Imperial Army of course form the primary fighting forces in time of war. In peacetime however, they often assist the HSF in peacekeeping and enforcement.

Army Regular


Alternate Helmet


Army Pilot


Storm Trooper

The Imperial Navy is unlike it's more traditional past incarnations, its reach going far beyond the ocean, its operations extending to the skies. land and even as far up into space. Combining aspects of the navy proper, the air force, and marine corps. It is the largest branch in the military.
Seacraft
Imperator-class Carrier


Praetorian-class Battlecruiser


Centurion-class Missile Destroyer


Legionary-Series Warships

Top to Bottom: Frigate, Corvette, Patrol Boat

Aircraft

Spacecraft
Starblade-class Assault Shuttle

The Shadow Ops branch of Imperial Intelligence. The Spectres are by far the most feared men and woman in the Continent, the Elite of the Elite. The Spectres main task is utmost, maintaining the Security of the Imperial Republic, by any means necessary. They are often sent on assassination missions to depose of potential and present threats to the Republic. Due to their secretive nature, they have become a sort of Urban Legend among the Public and Military.

Spectre Operative


Spectre Variant of Steel Hawk VTOL

The government of the Vesta Free State could best be described as a Limited Franchise Federal Republic. The various asteroids and stations of the nation all have their own local governments which in turn submit to the Central Assembly of Vesta. All voting Citizens may vote for their own local leaders as well as who represents them in the Central Assembly however the vote is not a guaranteed right in the Free State. To gain the right to vote a citizen must spend at least one term in Federal service of some kind, most likely the military. The Leader of the Vesta Free State is the Director; Directors are chosen by a committee of both military officers and Assemblymen from either's ranks. Directors oversee both the military and civilian running of the VFS and are given incredible amounts of power to make sure nation is running as it should. The Term of service for the Director is for life though they can step down at any time. A vote of no confidence by the Central Assembly result in the immediate expulsion of the current Director from his/her position.

The current leader of the Vesta Free State is Director Sebastian Thule. Thule rose to the directorship from the military where he held the rank of Strategos. Thule is a troubled man who was thrust into an unfavorable position by a vote of no confidence which ousted his predecessor. Facing a host of threats within and without, Thule's first two years in office have been balanced on a razor's edge, a position where the scarred former soldier seems to truly be at home.

The military of the Vesta Free State is primarily based around its strong fleet which is essential to defending the wide area of the asteroid belt from invaders or privateers seeking to muscle in on VFS holdings. Being a predominantly space based power their ground forces are not very extensive and lack much in the way of indirect fire artillery or heavy armor. Even with artificial spin the gravity on Vesta and Pallas are lower than that of earth and many other worlds, to account for this most of their forces make use of powered armor to lower the strain on the soldier. The Military of the VFS Is divided between Vesta Fleet Command which oversees the spaceborne units of the military, and Vesta Fleet Strike which covers all ground based operations.