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coz1

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Excellent work in the AARlander, TreizeV and another fascinating update. I was struck with the possibility that the US might fear the Russians were working on some Manhattan type project of their own, what with radioactive water samples and all that. Surely there must have been some worry prior to knowing what was really going on (if in fact there is any "fact" known about the chimera other than their destruction.)

And what to make of the Japanese? I admit, there seems to be some encroachment by the Chimera in Manchuria for sure. Will it engulf Japan proper? Certainly China.
 

Kurt_Steiner

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Black Sun said:
Will chimera cross Bering Strait and invade north america?

They had no problems crossing the Channel...

However, it may be something different here. Or crossing to the Japanese Home Islands, too.
 

unmerged(35402)

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This is one of the best-written AARs I've ever read. Excellent work in setting up a disturbing alternate history. As far as gameplay, the only problem you might run into is that even a beefed up USSR (unless you're playing as them) won't attempt a Sealion. Maybe someone here could code an event for you that drops 100 divisions in Plymouth a few months after the Chimera reach Normandy.
 

Chicken

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I am totally subscribed to this. For years I have loved Post-Apocalyptic and Downfall themed stories, some fantastic (like this one), some just an alternate history. I love the way this is being written. The one about the Yakutsk encounter had me about 4 inches from my computer screen.


... yeah, I'm a loser. :rofl:
 

TreizeV

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Port Moresby, New Guinea, East Indies Defensive Front


[The former Dutch colonial possessions are now overflowing with refugees following the Chimeran invasion from Siberia, one result from this is the complete evacuation of the Imperial Japanese fleet from the mainland. Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and even Japanese refugees are arriving daily, turning the entire coastline of the island into a wall of boats, ships or any craft that could float. Allied engineers are doing their best to cope with the shortage of food supplies, sending as many civilians as possible to Australia and the United States as time permits. Xu Jing Wei, a former peasant from Northern China, sits with me before heading off to the Malay front with his amalgamated unit of Japanese, Chinese and Korean soldiers.]

(For clarity’s sake, Western Military terms have been substituted for authentic Chinese)

The irony of the situation does not escape me. If you had told me fifteen years ago that I would be in Borneo leading a half Japanese-Korean force to defend Australia from those monsters….

[He shakes his head and sighs]


Still, I have to give them credit though, the Japanese. I was not there myself, but I’ve heard the horror stories during the kamikaze campaign on the Home Islands…that and the Japanese civil war, it almost makes things like Nanking….(he pauses) Perhaps I shouldn’t go too much into that, but my point is that it puts things into perspective. To many of the men, it’s no longer an issue of nationality anymore, it’s about survival. We all agree that with the task at hand we shouldn’t distract ourselves as it is with things in the past.

It’s not an easy thing though, letting go. We Chinese have a proud history, one that stretches for thousands of years before your European System. It was just as difficult for me when we first encountered the qinru.

What was the situation in China like before the coming of the Chimera?

The West called the twentieth century the second warring states period for China (the first beginning in 5th century B.C), there is nothing further from the truth in that statement. It is true that we were not unified as we had been under the emperors, but we all saw the need to band together against the common enemy, which at that time was Japan and Manchuria. There were of course, the Communists in the North, who were the hated enemies of the nationalist government. It was an ironic situation, we called it the ‘unified’ front, but it was hardly the case. In some places, the nationalist forces held the line, while in others it was the communists, both sides knew that once this was over, they would be at each other’s throats. Added to this was the half a dozen or so large armies of warlords and you can understand why the Japanese did as well as they did. Our army was large, by any modern standard, but half belonged to the independent warlords. And unlike our Japanese aggressors, who enjoyed the convenience of tanks, airplanes and mechanized infantry, we made due with outdated Russian and German rifles and some heavy artillery.

I was recruited by one of the warlords of the north in the Gansu region, who ‘answered’ to the central nationalist government. After leaving my village, we spent the next few months learning the basics of Guerilla warfare. Knowing how to effectively conceal yourself in the trees, while at the same time protecting your most valuable equipment, your rifle, from rusting and jamming. We also learned basic infantry skills, such as preparing foxholes, machine gun nests and trenches, but we hardly expected to use them.

By that time, China was still reeling from the battle of Shanghai. We essentially poured all of our best German-trained divisions into defending the city, as a show to the Western Powers, your United States, that we were willing to continue the struggle. It worked in a sense, we received more supplies from you, but we lost over twenty good divisions in the process.

Afterwards, Guerilla warfare began in earnest. It was our answer to the modern weapons of the Japanese. We practiced the concept known as ‘magnetic’ warfare, where we would attract surrounding Japanese forces into pre-determined choke points or staging areas where our prepared forces would strike back. It worked wonders in supporting our overall objective, to prolong the war as much as possible. The Kuomingtang government knew that we would never have the technological superiority of the Japanese in this war, so we would wear them out in the long run. We certainly had more resources and men to do so, and our guerilla operations added onto that strategy.

300px-Chinese_soldiers_1939.jpg

Chinese Troops make their way through a village

After our training, we operated as a detached brigade. There was no ‘frontline’ in our area. The Japanese controlled the cities and railroads, but everything else belonged to us. We would ambush a convoy here, blow up a munitions depot there. Occasionally, we supported the regular army in their counterattacks, fighting street to street in cities and towns across the North. We also enlisted the aid of the Mongolians, who brought us Russian equipment every now and then.

Was it through that route where you encountered the first incidents?

Not immediately, the Mongol steppes are a vast and empty place. We did our best to avoid the country whenever possible, due to the real danger of being attacked by Japanese planes.

The first thing time we noticed something wrong was when we made our usual rounds up in Baotou, in the Nei Mongol Region was the cold. The steppes are a harsh place, but during the fall when we went up, the temperatures were near freezing, even during the daytime. This multiplied our troubles. Some of the men, who were recruited from the more humid and tropical regions of the south started suffering from frostbite. There were days when we lost a good third of our strength from disease and cold.

The countryside too, was void of life and that was the most unsettling part. We came across a deserted village one day. It was easy to find considering the trail of blood and bullets we had to follow. We knew it was a Jap detail, sent to punish the villagers for supplying us in our last campaign up Manchuko, there was even a deserted Japanese machine gun nest and tattered flag in the village centre. But right away we noticed something amiss. Why were the Japanese deployed in the centre of the village? We expected the villagers to put up a fight considering this was one of our strongholds, but it seemed like they just invited them in, or the Japanese must have been running in.

From the bullet marks on the trees, we saw that this was almost a one sided firefight. There were almost no bullet marks on the houses or fences, prime positions of cover for those defending a village. It seemed like the peasants had cooperated with the Japanese. But that didn't make sense. Why would they? and against what?

Even then, the story of the battle was difficult to tell because one vital piece of evidence was missing.

There were no bodies. The Japanese made it a point to leave any executed guerilla out in the open, as a demonstration of the price paid to those who resisted. They certainly never bothered burying them. The corpses we did find however, were the cattle. They weren’t shot, but brought down by what looked like a vicious animal. Their bellies and insides were literally torn out and we saw the numerous jagged teeth marks on their bodies.

My men started getting nervous, I heard rifles click behind me, and just before I motioned the men to stop I heard it, the rustle of the leaves in the surrounding trees.

Instinctively, I crouched down, listening closely for any signs of life. My breathing slowed, another skill I picked up, even as I felt my heart racing in anticipation.

Then I heard one of my men scream.

I instantly turned, along with my platoon, and found that our comrade was being pinned to the ground by a Siberian wolf. We have heard of these fierce animals before, how they were the largest of their kind and feared throughout the Arctic regions, but we never expected to find one here. Before long, more of them burst from the trees, pouncing at my men while others were shot before they could get off the ground.

I fumbled for my rifle, removing the safety just in time to be knocked onto my back by one of them. I lifted the rifle to protect my face, and the creature’s jaw bit right onto my gun as I struggled to push him off me. They are beautiful animals I hear, but this one seemed so much more feral, I saw the frenzy and bloodlust in its eyes, something akin to desperation and fear.

It was seconds later before one of my men put a bullet through its head. Others were fighting back with bayonets, even their bare hands. A few of my men were torn apart on the spot before we could save them. It was a maddening experience, we expected to fight against an enemy in the village, but not one so savage and primitive.

The battle lasted five minutes, and the bodies of a dozen wolves lay on the ground, along with four of our men. We quickly buried them and made our way back to Gansu, none of the men wanted to continue after that.

I reported our encounter in the village back to my commander, and he seemed genuinely concerned. Apparently mine was not the first report. There were others of feral and savage animals migrating to the South into China, among them were large packs of Siberian wolves. He told me I was lucky that I did not encounter a bigger pack, we had just lost two platoons to wolves in the past two days.

Not only that, but it seemed like the livestock in every village up north has been acting up, breaking down fences and running about wild eyed. All this of course, coincided with the build up of Japanese forces in our sector. Being a good soldier, my commander focused his priorities on our enemies, but I thought to myself that maybe the Japanese were having the same problems as us.

They always say that the animals are the first to know, that they possess a sixth sense about danger that we humans do not. I’ve heard the stories about how birds or even cats behave strangely before Earthquakes or other natural disasters, perhaps we should have known, but given the war in front of us, it was almost impossible to take notice. And now, you can see that we have paid the price for our ignorance.

 
Last edited:

TreizeV

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Kurt_Steiner It would make sense, I don't see how they would stop at just Europe. Sadly, the game doesn't focus on China or Asia, but I do hope to rectify that somewhat :)

Enewald All shall be revealed soon. The game history did not mention much about German resistance, but I shall cover that for sure!

Ksim3000 Thank you Ksim, rest assured, unlike the real game, there will be some perspectives from Asia. As for the ETO, it is more like the modern day EU, but perhaps less integrated. I would say a trade pact and defensive alliance.

Andri That would be an interesting story ;)

Black Sun Thanks black sun! I do hope to get more into that as time goes on.


coz1
Thanks Coz! Japan will play an equally large role in this AAR for sure. And as for your question regarding the Us and the Russian water sample. That fact actually completely escaped my mind! I guess I was so busy trying to portray American indifference to Russia and the rest of the world that I neglected to mention that fact :S. But chalk it up as disdain for the Tsarist government more than anything.

Shonison Yes, I am playing as the USSR in this game. I'm still trying to come up with a solution to the English channel problem of course, but hopefully by the time I get to that part in the AAR i will have an idea. Hardcoded even with 100 divisions eh.. ;) wouldn't mind that.

Chicken Wow thanks Chicken! I had no clue my writing there was that intense. I do agree, there is something so darkly appealing about post-apocalyptic stories....

Thanks everyone for reading! And sorry about the update time!
 

unmerged(85800)

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excellent update. i hadnt expected to see action in the east, as you say the game concentrates on britain and europe, but very good stuff. like how it's progressing, cant wait for the fighting to start in earnest.
 

Ermac

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This pleases me but I would still like to see Nathan Hale or the Cloven.
 

Kurt_Steiner

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It's odd. This report from Asia bears no resemblance whatsoever to what we have learnt in Europe. Animals running wild, terrified... It must be something big if it scares a Siberian wolf. Big... and deadly.

In Europe I haven't read that nothing, not even animals, did appear. I have to doublecheck the previous posts...

When the Chimera arrived to China? Before they attacked Europe?
 

unmerged(61606)

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My only nitpick is the Chinese soldier's use of American slang "Jap" in his speech. I know said they substituted Chinese military terms for American ones, but would that include derogatory slang?

Regardless, excellent update. Those wolves sure are freaky.
 

stnylan

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So we begin now to get some sense of what is happening in the Orient. So Japan has fallen - though fiercely resisted by the sounds of it - and so has China. I wonder if Taiwan has? Probably, if Bornea is the destinatin of refugees. And how far south on the mainland have the Chimera reached? Malaysia? If so it should not be difficult for them to spread from there throughout Dutch East Indies.

But for the first time really there is also a curious element of hope in this update - no where else is it so clear that former enemies are banding together as a common force.
 

unmerged(85800)

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Kurt_Steiner said:
It's odd. This report from Asia bears no resemblance whatsoever to what we have learnt in Europe. Animals running wild, terrified... It must be something big if it scares a Siberian wolf. Big... and deadly.

In Europe I haven't read that nothing, not even animals, did appear. I have to doublecheck the previous posts...

When the Chimera arrived to China? Before they attacked Europe?

the game's story focused entirely on europe, so he is presumably making this up, unless i missed something somewhere. :) its true there was no mention of wild animals in europe, but it makes sense. animals would be scared shitless by something like the chimera.
 

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rcduggan said:
My only nitpick is the Chinese soldier's use of American slang "Jap" in his speech. I know said they substituted Chinese military terms for American ones, but would that include derogatory slang?

Regardless, excellent update. Those wolves sure are freaky.

Well, I wouldn't know what derogatory slang Chinese use for Japanese, but I'm fairly sure they would (especially in that day and age) and that I wouldn't have a clue :)


Considering how the Chimera manage to turn people into mindless body-collectors and worse.. Feral animals seem to fit quite well (even if no mention is made about feral animals in online resources of the game this is based on)

wonderful new update :)
 

Ksim3000

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Another excellent and bone chilling update there! I really did like the mention of the animals going wild. As they do indeed say, in any terrible event, animals seem to sense the danger more so then Humans.

I did enjoy this update though, especially with the mention of the Japanese invasion of China. It seems the Second Sino-Japanese War is continuing as was the case historically albeit just the Chimera thrown in this time. And it's interesting you noted that the Japanese Army and the peasants were probably banding together to fight the Chimeran threat (or atleast the animal migrations)

I'm glad you have expanded into what is happening in Asia, a nice distraction from the American and European focus of events. It'll be interesting when you hopefully write about what happened on the Japanese Home Islands. "Kamikaze" is something chillingly disturbing yet should be interesting. ;)

Anyway, it's a shame they did that with Europe. It would have been fun if they had say the government of the Third Reich banding together with Britain and France and other European governments, trying to hold back the Chimeran threat. Do you think you'll have the Nazi Party and Hitler exist in this timeline but the premise is, they basically failed to get into power? Maybe the Great Depression didn't occur, spurring more continental cooperation and less demand for blood lust and revenge?

I wonder if the Philippines have also fallen? I suspect India has....

Update soon!
 

TreizeV

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Long Island Refugee Compound, New York


[It takes weeks to organize the many refugees into their improvised camps, but Sergei finally manages to be assigned a room in an apartment, part of the new construction effort put forth by the FHA (federal housing agency) and civilian volunteers. From his apartment window, I see the various protestors from the AAA chanting their slogans, calling for the ‘illegal’ refugees to leave. “America first, America Only!”. They don’t seem to bother Sergei much as he pours me another shot of Vodka. He also pours one for Vasily, who managed to get in touch with Sergei after our fateful encounter in Ohio. Now, we compile what is perhaps the only eyewitness account of the forgotten war.]

It had been over a year since we last received any orders from St. Petersburg. By that time we had received the reports, heard of the skirmishes in Siberia and Yakutsk, and the vanishing villages. The epidemic had begun to hit cities as well. We had lost contact with Kiev and Tsaritsyn for months now. Only afterwards did we learn that they had already taken the cities. Communication with the Western part of the empire was made even more difficult by the howling snow and blizzards. It was at this point we received the Tsar’s last official communiqué, an order written about a year ago telling us to mobilize.

There were several things my boys thought at that time, what were we mobilizing against? The Volga region had gone literally quiet for months now, mail had ceased to flow within the empire and the weather was cold as hell.

It was then that the general provided us with some statistics. Theoretically, with our huge population reserves, Russia would be able to call up an army of two million in the interior. By the time we gathered all the reserves around the Far East regions, we only had under 100,000 men in our command. They had already attacked our main source of manpower, the villages and cities. To make matters worse, communication with St. Petersburg had been lost, we had received radio broadcasts from the Central army headquarters now and then, giving us orders to counterattack, but within weeks the line became dead. Only one message looped over and over, to prepare us for the ‘angry night’.

You can see with rational thinking how this was going to end. Increasingly the Tsarist army found itself in two uncomfortable positions. One, our enemy was one that actually thrived in the winter, he would never get frostbite, never freeze to death, he would seek cold because it was natural to him, like humans and water. It was astonishing, unlike our ancestors who fought Napoleon, General Winter was not on our side! Two, with the loss of so many villages and towns, the Russian army was actually in danger of being seriously outnumbered for the first time ever in our history.

My commander saw the immediate danger, but he was raised to obey, and obey to the last man he would! He had us armed and ready for the march towards Yakutsk. At that point I was placed in charge of a mixed battalion of marines and infantry, my battalion had already lost eighty percent of our effectives and most of our officers, so I did not really relish the promotion.

The countryside was completely void and empty, a frozen desert that was made worse by the two feet of snow that was piling on and slowing our movements. Every now and then, men would fall out of the column, frostbitten or simply exhausted. The horses were the first to go, and the whole march resembled that of a Napoleonic retreat to me.

That march lasted about a week, before we finally arrived. Yakutsk at the time, was a city under siege. My men were stationed with other Naval marines that were posted there some time ago. I assumed command on the spot, interviewing a few marines on the whereabouts of their commander. They informed me that he was taken by them several weeks ago, and that their battalion of a thousand men was now down to less than a hundred. I was lucky, they told me, I got promoted again, in command of two ‘regiments’.

I spent the first day observing the lines and what was to be my command. Yakutsk was a city literally on fire, and I saw evidence of prolonged shelling and bombardment, only that the explosions seemed more irregular, with neat holes scattered in each of the buildings, it was as though someone had taken a giant shotgun canister and lobed it into town. This time was different, there were bodies. This was war.

My regiments had been assigned their positions, which were strong by the standards of the last war. Barbed wire trenches, along with massive artillery to support from behind the lines. We had everything, machine guns, plenty of rifle ammunition, even improvised mines and booby traps! Probing attacks were made by them, not strong enough to overwhelm our improvised trenches and machine guns, but enough to disable a few posts and snatch a few men into the night. The screams you would hear in the night……I suppose that is why they call it the Angry Night…

[He downs another shot of vodka]


I remember the first time I saw what ‘they’ looked like. I was very lucky that it was already dead at that time, otherwise I wouldn’t have know what I would do. The thing was holding a rifle, unlike any I’ve seen before, and managed to drag itself through ten yards of barbed wire on its one good arm before one of our snipers plugged a bullet through its brain. That was the kind of naked ferocity we were fighting against. The kind that would send chills down your spine even after you've dispatched the enemy.

I did not really have time to adjust myself. My tenure at the city did not last long. By that time, the enemy had already evolved into a new threat. We called them the crawlers.

Crawlers?

Four legged things, most were the size of a dog, others the size of a tank. Imagine a scorpion mixed with a spider, and you’ll get an idea. Hell, I'm not even sure if that's an accurate description!

Funny thing isn’t it. We accepted the fact that our enemy was a brutal savage the likes we’ve never seen, with four eyes, sharp teeth, and the ability to rip a man in half with strength alone. It didn’t tip us over the edge that these things looked nothing like a normal human being; they were at least humanoid in shape. But the new ones were more like monsters from hell, I think that their appearance had a profound psychological effect on our troops.

Untitled-4copy.jpg

The Battle of Yakutsk:
One of the surviving photographs Sergei had smuggled to the west: It is believed to be the earliest known photograph of the Chimera


In any case, they started swarming our lines, trickles at first, but eventually they bursted from the tree line into the city limits, one gigantic black wave of these dog-sized insect things. Our machine guns opened up, along with the artillery and tanks inside the city. Almost at once, the entire front sector exploded into geysers of snow. Our shells were landing into the pre-determined kill zones, blowing hundreds of them into pieces literally. Rifle fire opened up at around five hundred yards but by then some of the men were already panicking. For every ten we kill in the swarm, another twenty would crawl over their dead bodies towards us. A shell crater would literally be filled by this things seconds after the explosion, there were that many! It was impossible to get them all. How could we coordinate artillery strikes against an enemy the size of a dog? And in such large numbers!

The men started to panic, our rifles are bolt-action you see. One shot, then you have to manually open and close the breech for the next bullet.

He mimics recharging a bolt action rifle with his hands

One bullet! At the least, one second? Against a swarm! What could we do?

The line was soon swallowed by this swarm, large parts of the trenches were overrun and street to street fighting ensued, it was during then that I commanded my men to abandon the lines. The crawlers had already reached the streets, climbing on buildings and jumping on civilians and soldiers. It was pure chaos, there was no central command, men just blindly shot anything that moved. I’ve had a few men put down by friendly machine gun fire simply because the gunner couldn’t take anymore and shot wildly at friend and foe. The things were systematic, they left no prisoners behind, no soldier or civilian body untouched, and that inspired a blinding fear into all the survivors. I had lost so many of my boys in those trenches…..

[He pauses]

With the majority of Yakutsk descended into unorganized fighting, it then that I decided it was too late for anything, for the Tsar, for Russia, for our empire. The best we could do now was to save as many people as we can, even if it was too late already.

I gathered what was left of my men, perhaps less than twenty from the original three hundred I started the week off with. I told them it was our new objective now to break out, and head South towards Port Arthur, even that shit hole Vladivostok seemed like heaven compared to Yakutsk. We managed to find a truck in all that chaos and escape to the East, by that time the heavily armed brutes had attacked the city, flushing out rooms and destroying the last pockets of resistance. Four of my remaining men were shot dead defending that last truck, we had to put down a few of our wounded to. To us, we were doing them a favor.

We escaped Yakutsk, leaving the burning shelled out city behind us, ignoring all the inhuman shrieks that echoed into the night. I don’t think any of us had a good night’s sleep after that. I was physically exhausted myself, I had stayed up for days preparing the defenses that had been overrun in hours, now I was driving for dear life across a frozen Siberian plain for god knows how long.

At this point Vasily speaks

Vasily: It was at this point that Colonel Sergei collapsed, just as our truck ran out of gas, we had been on the run for the past few days before we finally reached Port Arthur. The other men, about ten of us from the battalion, wanted to go our separate ways. One man wanted to return to his home village back in the Urals, he wouldn’t accept that fact that his family was gone. We let him go. I can easily imagine what happened to him.

Sergei: I suppose they had a vote or something to decide whether it was worth carrying my worthless carcass to as far as Port Arthur [He chuckles] Lucky me.

Vasily: He lost essentially, the men went their separate ways and we never saw each other again. I found an old farm cart, and some furs in a deserted village, and wheeled him the extra few miles. By that time Vladivostok was out of the question, we were heading east for days, finally stumbling upon the port of Magadan, where a destroyer and a few civilian craft were still left. It was at this point that I was glad that I took the colonel with me.

Sergei I pulled rank on the yellow bastard commanding the destroyer, and ordered the evacuation of the town. There was no more central authority now, and but the captain didn’t have to know did he [He grins]

Vasily It took a few days to resupply and gather up some more stragglers from the surrounding area, but we finally had a small flotilla of three ships, we started to set sail to the East. To the only other place we could with our limited fuel. Japan.

Sergei Yes, and what did those bastards do the moment we ran up the white flag? They took our weapons, and locked us up into these ‘observation’ camps. Everything we tried to explain, the missing people, the disappearances, they completely ignored us, as though we were crazy. We were kept as ‘political’ prisoners, isolated from the rest of the world for the next few years. The Japanese government couldn’t get in touch with our government, hell if there still was one, so they let us rot, and with the war in China blowing up in their faces, they simply pretended that we didn’t exist. I even had some photographic proof of the Chimera, and our interrogators simply dismissed it as 'Russian' Propaganda, and they destroyed most of them. They thought we were advance agents whose mission was to spread fear and confusion in their ranks.

Vasily Eventually, they decided to transfer us to the Imperial outpost at Okinawa, hauling coals for the next few years. In hindsight, it was probably the kindest thing they could have done to us. With the Chimeran attack in Asia and all. Nearly ten years! That was the amount of time ahead we warned the Japanese, and what did they do? Treat us like some insane asylum inmates and had us do slave work? It wasn’t that part that got us angry though, it was the fact that we couldn’t understand why the Japanese would ignore the warnings. Why weren’t they listening when it could have made a difference?

 
Last edited:

TreizeV

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BritishImperial Thanks Britishimperial! I was trying to get a more world view of this alternate hsitory as opposed to just the view inside britain for the game. It seemed interesting enough ;)

Ermac I'm not sure if I'll focus on Nathan Hale, but there will be in game characters for sure! Stay tuned, chapter 1 is almost at an end

Kurt_Steiner There actually was a report on strange animal behaviour prior to the Chimeran invasion. The fact that none escaped to Europe could be because of the iron curtain wall. Mongolia in this case, had nothing like that to protect them from the swarms of wild animals.

rcduggan Thanks Rc, I tried to find a chinese slang for the japanese during world war 2, but i was unsuccessful, so I went with 'jap' and gave the 'american terms' disclosure at the beginning. Of course, the idea of some slang goes through hehe.

stnylan Yes, hope..perhaps I shouldn't give too much of that, lest you guys think this might have a happy ending ;) but yes, I couldn't resist putting in some unlikely alliances in the story.

ForzaA My thoughts exactly. Thank you Forza!

Enewald Thank you sir!

turtledove There will be some historial figures for sure...I just won't say who :D

Ksim3000 Very astute observations Ksim, India and the Philippines will be explored in the future.

As for Hitler and the Nazi party, in the game timeline, they were soundly defeated in the weimar elections following the economic revival of Europe with the establishment of the ETO. I will make mention of them, whether I will make them the head of state of Germany is still up in the air. But the Nazi's will have a part to play in this of course!