Sophia would not stand by as nations revived a rival ideology and embraced it; already, there were protests in the streets of Nanjing calling for her abdication and for Chancellor Xi to assume control as a president, with the Guomingdang forming a new Diet to replace the one that Sophia had set up in the aftermath of the invasion. Sophia responded by sending in troops and increasing funding for the police. She sent subsidies and troops to Germany and Austria-Hungary to keep them afloat, and slowly their economies began to improve, with their streets cleaned of crime and the unemployed and homeless given jobs and housing by the prepared Chinese soldiers. It would not be enough, though, to end the economic crisis that gripped most of Europe and benefited Greece. It controlled the food imports and exports, as well as the flow of raw materials to and from Europe. The Mediterranean Economic Union basically decided the fate of Europe’s economy on a whim, currently wishing to torture Germany for its role in the Seventh Weltkrieg. However, all of that assumed that the Earth economy was independent of the rest of the galactic economy.
Sophia sent her ships to other planets, negotiating deals and sometimes using gunboat diplomacy to secure trade agreements. Soon, food and raw materials were being supplied to Europe, especially Germany and Austria-Hungary, from off-world, going around Greece’s bottleneck on Mediterranean trade; neutral nations referred to it as the “space-lift.” As Greece’s profits and its stranglehold on European trade dwindled, its president signed a secret agreement with the United States and the other republics to destroy the monarchies once and for all in the name of freedom. The same day, Sophia met with Arthur and the Kaiser in Nanjing to discuss a strategy for the imminent global war against the democracies. Whichever ideology won would decide the fate of the entire world. They devised a plan in case war broke out.
On July 4, 2016, a bomb planted by CIA agents in Washington, D.C. severely damaged the Capitol building and killed several congressmen, as well as the president’s family but not the president himself, while all were attending the patriotic July 4th parades. The Americans blamed the attack on Canada and issued an ultimatum to King Arthur II of England: either abdicate and institute complete democracies in Canada, England, and the other members of the British Commonwealth, along with the dismantlement of the already specified Commonwealth, or face war and certain destruction. Arthur chose war, as part of Sophia’s plan.
And so the Monarchists, consisting of China, Germany, Austria-Hungary, England, Scotland, Wales, Australia, Canada, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Bengal, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, the Papal State, the Caliphate, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, Russia, Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Carthage, Ireland, Afghanistan, and Persia, went to war with the Republicans, consisting of Greece, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Mali, Ethiopia, Arabia, Hawaii, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Hyderabad, Rajastan, New Zealand, Spain, France, the United States of Central America, Kurdistan, California, Columbia, Texas, Deseret, Alaska, Cherokee, the Confederacy, the Free States, Cuba, Haiti, Jan Mayen, Quebec, Newfoundland, the Maritime Union, Ukraine, Congo, Madagascar, and Kilwa, sparking the Eighth and Final Weltkrieg among the nations of Earth.
Sophia realized that with most of the nations of the world involved in this war, things were going to get really bloody really fast. The scale of the war was beyond anything she or anyone for that matter could have predicted and prepared for, but her plan still held.
A combined Monarchist space fleet met the Republican space fleets in orbit over Africa in the first battle of the war; with over a hundred ships participating, this battle dwarfed any naval or space battle previously fought. Nobody won the battle, because both sides lost the majority of their space fleets in the fierce fighting. The wreckage from the battle rained down over the Republic of Ethiopia, causing massive damage to infrastructure and a crippling famine, eventually leading to its surrender and the restoration of its emperor. But that was part of Sophia’s plan to wipe out the Republican fleet and distract the Republicans from the real battle on the ground. The capitulation of Ethiopia was an added bonus, giving the Monarchists a stronghold in Africa.
Sophia ordered an invasion of India, supporting Bengali forces into Hyderabad and Rajastan at the start of the monsoon season, which was a big mistake as she soon realized, as the heavy rains dampened the ammunition and disabled the explosives, frustrating her efforts. The Chinese troops quickly became bogged down in the rain and the mud, with Rajput and Deccan troops using guerilla tactics against the Bengalis and Chinese. The Siamese, having been allied to the Chinese since 1926, eagerly launched an invasion of Sri Lanka, with Burmese support. Once the island fell to Monarchist forces, they marched northwards and conducted amphibious invasions of Hyderabad. Once Hyderabad fell, Rajastan would be surrounded on all sides and be forced to capitulate to Monarchist forces, as part of Sophia’s plan
Elsewhere, the Imperial navies of Japan and China invaded Hawaii and occupied the islands quickly, forcing the president’s surrender and the installation of a distant relative of the Hawaiian royal family; this placated Sophia for now. The next part of her plan was to use Hawaii to begin an invasion of California, using the old battle plans from the Pacific War in the 1940s. However, that part was quickly derailed.
The Alaskans invaded Siberia, with the harsh winters doing nothing to stop them, as they were generally used to such extreme conditions, forcing the Imperial Navy to scramble from Hawaii to blockade the Bering Straits. Sophia ordered troops to be diverted from India all the way to fight the Alaskans in Siberia, where the Koreans and Japanese were working hard to at least slow them down. The Alaskans managed to push all of the way to Haishenwai in Outer Manchuria, sieging it for four brutal weeks before the Imperial Army arrived to fight them. Eventually, the Alaskans were driven back across the Bering Strait, with Koreans and Japanese launching invasions of Alaska in retaliation.
In the Middle East, the Persians invaded Arabia and Kurdistan, getting as far as Baghdad before the Republican troops could retaliate against them with hit-and-run tactics. As a large sandstorm set in, both sides dug into the ground to fortify themselves, reviving the trench warfare tactics that had been used a hundred years ago to devastating effect; neither side made any progress for most of the war, although Arabia was continuously harassed by religious extremist militants. Israel marched down the Red Sea coast of Arabia, seizing the Muslim holy sites and ticking off the entire Muslim world, which feared that the holy sites (already destroyed by the Goa’uld) would be destroyed by the Israelis again, causing the Caliph to impulsively nuke Jerusalem, which in turn caused the Pope to nuke Ankara, which
then caused the Caliph to nuke Rome, killing both heads of religion and almost provoking a Christian-Muslim sectarian war. Sophia and Arthur managed to mediate an agreement between the new Pope and new Caliph before the two could declare devastating crusades and jihads against each other.
With Alaska under siege by the Koreans and Japanese, the United States, Alaska, Columbia, California, Mexico, and Quebec simultaneously invaded Canada (again) to put more pressure on the Monarchists, effortlessly seizing Toronto, which was burned to the ground and looted. The Canadian forces retreated northwards, scorching the earth as they went. The winter set in as the Americans advanced on Ottawa, killing thousands on both sides in the harsh conditions. English troops landed in Eastern Canada, assaulting the fortifications of Quebec, Newfoundland, and the Maritime Union from land and sea, with the latter’s navy proving to be more than a match for the once glorious Royal Navy.
In Europe, a combined Russian, German, Papal, and Austrian offensive drove deep into France, while the English invaded from Normandy. The Monarchist forces pushed into Paris by the winter of 2016, forcing a French surrender, which coincided with a Ukrainian invasion of Russia. The Tsarist forces retreated like the Canadians, scorching their own cities to make sure the Ukrainians had nothing to loot or live on. When the Ukrainians reached Moscow, their numbers had dwindled significantly, allowing the Russian reinforcements to effortlessly smash them.
Austria-Hungary attempted to invade Greece itself, seeking to gain international fame by crushing the Republicans at their source, but its outdated and underfunded armies, however propped up by the Chinese, were no match for the elite and advanced Greek forces, which plowed through wave after wave of Habsburg soldiers like a trireme through the waves. Ottoman attempts at crossing the Bosporus were frustrated by the Greek and Ukrainian navies, and the walls of Constantinople again rebuffed any attempt by the Ottomans to storm the city.
In the spring of 2017, Canada surrendered to the United States, which annexed the entire nation, to the outrage of even the other Republicans. President George Bush claimed that it was only “natural” that Canada be a part of “Greater Texas,” immediately deploying his nukes and turning on the Confederacy, the Free States, California, Cherokee, Texas, Columbia, and Alaska, annexing all of them into the United States in days. Mexico then underwent a huge and chaotic monarchist revolution, restoring the Iturbide family and the monarchy to power, prompting an American invasion. Sophia, enraged that the United States was aiming for continental hegemony at the expense of former tributary states, quickly sent in troops to fight the Americans and protect the Mexicans, having secured all of Asia for the Monarchist cause.
In Europe, things weren’t looking good. Despite the capitulation of France and the imminent surrender of Spain, Austria-Hungary and Russia could only take so much beating at the hands of the Greeks and the Ukrainians. Germany’s and England’s troops were tied up in Spain, and Africa was, simply put, a mess. If the Greeks could break out of the stalemate with the Habsburgs and destroy Austria-Hungary, Germany would be left open to attack from the south and the east, should Ukraine manage to also defeat Russia.
Soon the Americans had crossed the Rio Grande and cut a bloody swathe south, crushing Mexican troops easily. Central American troops marched up from the south, seizing the Yucatan in weeks.
Chinese troops arrived in Mexico by the millions in the spring of 2018, halting an American advance on Mexico City and driving back the Republican forces. Spain surrendered to the Monarchist forces, freeing up German and English troops to fight on the Southern Front. Greece suddenly found itself surrounded on all sides: the Ottomans from the east, the Egyptians and Israelis from the seas, the Austro-Hungarians and Germans from the north, and the Papal State from the west. It didn’t help that Russia finished “protecting its oppressed Russian minorities” in its enemy Ukraine, annexing the entire republic.
After its army ran out of ammunition and its navy mutinied, allowing the Ottomans to seize Constantinople from the Greeks and march unopposed into northern Greece, a military coup by desperate generals overthrew the Greek president, negotiating an armistice with Sophia and the Kaiser as Sophia positioned her rebuilt
Zheng He-class carriers above Greece in preparation for a ruthless orbital nuclear bombardment that would obliterate Greece and wipe its civilization off the face of the planet. The Republic of Greece and the majority of the Republican nations surrendered on November 11, 2018—the one hundredth anniversary of the First Weltkrieg. The United States continued the fight alone until New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Richmond, Savannah, Houston, and several other major cities were repeatedly nuked from orbit by the Chinese. The president attempted to surrender on December 1, with all of his cities and armies trampled and his lands full of deadly radiation, but Congress refused to send the surrender, prompting the president to veto Congress. Congress responded by overriding the veto and then assassinating the president and his supporters to cement its power. A final nuke dropped over Philadelphia managed to destroy most of the Congress in one blast, forcing the survivors to surrender unconditionally.
The Eighth Weltkrieg ended, with German and China finally victorious. All defeated nations that fought with the Republicans, with the exception of the United States of America (as Sophia argued that “American Empire” or “Kingdom of America” didn’t sound appropriate, as well as the fact that there was no royal family able to take the American throne), had monarchies installed in them. Germany and China reestablished control over their former African colonies, with the former reestablishing a more moderate Mittelafrika colonial and the latter re-founding a puppet Empire of Mali to control West Africa. All territorial gains made by the Monarchist nations would remain in place (England, for example, received the Falklands and South Georgia from Argentina). The United States was forced to release all of the North American nations that it had annexed in 2017, with Canada annexing Quebec and the other breakaway states and China re-annexing the former Pacific States, leaving Texas, Cherokee, and Columbia as buffer states; a subsequent attempt by the United States to invade Canada and Mexico simultaneously on December 15 resulted in the former’s partition between the kingdoms of Mexico, Texas, the Cherokee, and Canada. Bengal annexed the republics of Hyderabad, Sri Lanka, and Rajastan, proclaiming the Empire of Bharat the day after Armistice, with a simple but charismatic young farmer claiming to be from the legendary Suryavansha dynasty ascending the Indian throne as the Samrat Chakravartin. Denmark annexed the other Scandinavian states and declared the reformation of a Norse-worshipping Scandinavian Empire. In a national referendum, the people of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales voted to join England in restoring the United Kingdom, after a surprise Greek invasion from space forced them to realize that divided the four of them would be easy targets for their enemies. King Arthur II was crowned king of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales the next day in St. Paul’s Cathedral, with millions watching from around the world.
All Republican nations were forced to pay harsh reparations to Germany and the rest of the Monarchist nations, but not Greece, which received special treatment.
Greece and Arabia were annexed into the Ottoman Empire, now a Great Power again, for their roles in the Eighth Weltkrieg and their failures to stop militant insurgencies, respectively. The Ottomans also demanded the annexation of Kurdistan in the peace treaty, but Sophia intervened on behalf of the Kurds.
The victories propelled Germany back into Great Power status, practically fixing its economy and putting it on par with that of China’s. Around the world, people watched as a monarchy’s economy rose to supplant the former Greek one, and nations began switching back to monarchies. Austria-Hungary’s economy also grew, and the prospering times led the Archduke to declare a huge centralization program for his empire, rendering the Dual Monarchy obsolete and replacing it with a highly centralized Austrian Empire, a liberal yet absolute monarchy ruling from Vienna.
China returned to the number 1 position among the Great Powers. After two years of careful planning, Sophia smiled in relief. Her rule and reign were secured. She was still sad that people had to die to secure the monarchists’ cause. At least a hundred million died, or ten percent of the population of Earth, with the total population of Earth down to around 900 million, a third of which lived in China. Much of the world was reduced to irradiated nuclear wasteland, with millions poised to die from radiation poisoning soon.
At the end of 2018, the Great Powers were, from least to most influential: Spain, France, the Empire of Bharat, the Ottoman Empire, Austria, the United Kingdom, the German Empire, and the Chinese Empire. All were monarchies, as they should be, Sophia reflected.
With issues on Earth resolved, the Great Powers turned to space again…