(Chapter 5) Appendix 1 - Signs of military activity

(WW3, Armageddon)

Est. 2045

From what I can tell there was, unfortunately, a third world war in this iteration of humanity's history. Extensive damage has been caused by something that was not simply natural occurrences, at least as far as I can tell. In all my time and my travels, I have not seen a tree do damage similar to that of an atomic weapon. I have passed through entire towns and cities that were entirely levelled by ballistic weaponry, craters in the ground where towering structures once stood.

Sometime around 2025, local time, as far as I can tell the country I woke up in had engaged in a civil war. Further investigation revealed the country was known as the USA or simply America and was made up of semi-independent states which owed fealty to one ruling President and a senate. During a time of civil strife, and under particularly poor leadership, the country eventually began to break down, with some states vying for more control over their laws and several larger states crying out for total autonomy.

This led to many violent clashes in the streets between protestors, law enforcement and even the armed forces of the country, which I am lead to believe were some of the strongest globally at that time. The president at that time began to feel the pressure building and lashed out at everyone around him, manipulating his public and his cabinet with poor decisions and being driven by anger.

Most of the support for him lay in the south, which was the basis for many stereotypes, however, this was an issue as the capital of the country lay to the north, whose body mainly consisted of people who were against the president's actions. As a result, he moved the capital of the country to a southern state and declared a state of national emergency, shutting down the government and implementing martial law. The majority of northern states rallied together and presented their response, a declaration of civil war.

This went rapidly downhill from there, some states were annexed entirely, others forming uneasy alliances with their neighbours and some simply trying to keep themselves together. With tensions around this matter growing globally, no country was in a position to intervene and the civil war grew worse in the months that followed.

Once the civil war there reached a peak, a joining country to the north, Canada, took the opportunity to seize control. Annoyed with the lack of progress made by their allies overseas and made nervous with the mounting aggression so close to their borders, military forces were deployed to seize control of the USA in its entirety. The evidence I have found suggests the main reason for the military action was to gain control over the USA's massive stockpile of nuclear and energy weaponry, to ensure they were not used.

Once this was done, the country began rebuilding steadily, attempting to repair the damage done by approximately eight to ten years of infighting. There were still global tensions at the time, something of a world council (I believe they were known as the UN) deciding how to respond to the situation. In the meantime, natural disasters wracked the world, sinking coastlines and cracking entire continents.

Global tensions began to rise again due to desperation, countries that were once friendly neighbours now at each others' throats, coveting resources or supplies. Candian scientists launched some kind of satellite into space intending to control, or at least reduce, the disasters that were attempting to destroy the world. These satellites employed an interesting form of sonic technology to reduce the magnitude of earthquakes, control weather patterns to disperse tornados and calm the oceans to stop tsunamis. From the reports I managed to recover, these worked with surprising success but more satellites were required. The scientists and engineers released their plans to the world for anyone to use to help combat nature itself.

It did not take long before several leading global superpowers began building and launching their satellites, and soon there was a protective bubble covering the planet. An entirely man-made bubble, consisting of satellites and stations of various size, shape and, evidently, purpose. The next article I managed to find in some chronological order speaks of some sort of chemical being released into the atmosphere, though it seemed intentional it had some catastrophic consequences that scientists had not seen to account for. I believe I know what this is, please refer to my notes on 'Subject 221A' for a further hypothesis.

The chemicals dispersed by the satellites were designed to subdue the natural disasters racking the planet at the time, though details on the exact science are scarce. People do not want to know how something works, merely if it works. And that's exactly what happened, but, again referring to 'Subject 221A', that's not all that they accomplished. Eventually, a second chemical was created and unleashed in an attempt to undo some of the damage caused by the initial chemical wave but this succeeded only in escalating global tensions to a dangerous level.

From the damage, I have observed and the next article I managed to put in order, one of these satellites was armed with some kind of particle beam weaponry. Highly experimental at the time, the exact purpose is, again, lost to me and the past. News headlines from around that time call it an 'unprovoked attack' or a 'clear sign of war', the weapon destroyed a large city on this western continent, killing hundreds of thousands in the blink of an eye and drilling deep into the tectonic layer of the planet itself. Later articles report the offending country, one of the east, explained this as a desperate attempt to save the entire continent from imminent destruction as they helped to stabilise the continent at a base level. The general opinion seemed to reject this excuse and called for open war.

Their wishes were granted. Every article I found thereafter had some form of war declaration on its cover. Some cried for restraint or reason where others called for more aggressive action and forms of brutal conscription to further the cause. It didn't take long for other countries to begin throwing their hats into the fray and it was soon declared to be 'World War 3'. Not the first time this iteration had come to international conflict, then. Various reports speak of glorious victories, costly defeats and analysis of the war overall, including detailed reports of damage caused in every country involved in the war. Populations were decimated, armies crushed by highly experimental and dangerous weaponry, territory lost and gained daily, towns and cities flattened by aerial or long-range bombardment.

It was a terrible thing to read of, I cannot begin to imagine how terrifying it must have been to bear witness to this on a more personal level. Reports after the conflict continued escalating have become sparse, I can only assume media companies were targeted and destroyed to harm morale, I have gleaned what I can from diary entries or saved video discs. Conflict continued, people died in the millions, both military and civilian, whether they were directly involved in the war or not. Research to save the planet or reach peaceful solutions were put aside in favour of more terrible military research, driven by a need for desperate survival.

After a loss of life I can estimate numbering in the billions, and countless loss of property, damage to entire countries and landmasses lost to rising tides and sinking weapons, the countries simply overthrew themselves and the planet was lost to a mess of in-fighting and savage war to avoid extinction. That was all I could find, and quite honestly, that's more than I'd ever want to know. These last few passages are mere speculation, a hypothesis put together from what little remaining evidence I could find. Unfortunately, this entry consists only of the first factor I can find that led to the end of this iteration of humanity. From everything I found, this was a particularly aggressive and greedy iteration and their end this way was, all things considered, inevitable.

No wonder I woke up.