Campaign Notes -Military Characters share a posting, having all served on the Belshazzar.
When the three main powers signed the Solar Treaty and conflict in the Solar War proper 'ended', the Chinese made moves to destroy all in-system Soviet forces, as well as the several 'Institutes' which were recruiting, creating and indoctrinating Psions. No psions were spared by the Chinese forces in the first couple of strikes, so the final strike was preempted by the G.U.S navy, who led a black-ops mission to take out the remaining psychic institute before Chinese forces could, in the process saving several
Talented individuals.
The Belshazzar was likely involved and the strike force was drawn from it's crew, with the aid of various insiders and some of the criminal organisations who had been supporting the institute, if not the Soviet insurgency itself. This is likely where the crew of your ship, the Tempest, came together. Interestingly, there are rumours that the Tempest saw active service in the battle surrounding and following the initial surgical strike, though it was retired from service shortly afterwards and eventually found it's way onto the commercial market...and into your hands.
Setting Notes -
Set several hundred years into the future of an alternate Earth, the solar system and our home planet has seen changes, but much remains the same. The three main powers to emerge from WW3 consist of the Greater United States, the Indio-European Republic, and New China.
The
Greater United States originally comprised the old United states of America and Britain, but in the devastation of WW3 grew to encompass what remained of Canada and much of the developed Southern American nations. Essentially democratic, the generally centralist Greater United States has very slight Socialist leanings, though they are tempered quite strongly by an essentially conservative dogma.
The
Indio European Republic comprises of the Free European states, (consisting of much of 'old Europe', as well as the scandinavian nations) and the remains of the Indian Alliance, (which flourished briefly in the run up to ww3, and was in truth a borderline dictatorship, controlling much of the Mediterranean and near-east through military force). The Republic operates on a heavily bureaucratic, senatorial system of proportional representation, and though it easily rivals the G.U.S technologically speaking, it is generally believed to lack an efficient military.
New China came to be when, in the later part of the 21st century, Chinese patience with the outside world, and her neighbors in particular, gave way. Russian confrontationalism finally pushed the Chinese leaders too far, and in a startlingly swift and brutal campaign, Russia was firmly annexed. Since then, Russia has existed as a mere province, and dreams of soviet empire have been perhaps permanently quoshed. Similar land-grabs of smaller scale were made during WW3, which was itself started by Soviet-Chinese terrorist action. When their involvement in the conflict was finally discovered, the three factions banded together to wipe out the Guerrilla movements off-world concerns and growing military bases.
Other nations of note include the Japanese, who are closely allied with New China. They abandoned the Isle of Japan at the end of the 22nd century, and now the center of the Japanese nation is the vast 'Nippon Prime' station, a space-station capable of in-atmosphere orbit, which
usuallymaintains a geosynchronous orbit with the Japan of old, now a vast nature reserve.
Japanese technology is vastly advanced of any of the major three's native technology, but New China has many exclusive contracts, and can largely be considered to 'share' the technological level, or at least close to it.
WW4, more properly the
Solar War, was a short-lived system-wide rerun of WW3. Soviet terrorist nations, having settle various planetoids and unexplored parts of the main non-earth planets, managed to covertly spark a briefly violent system-wide conflict via the use of Psionics and Telepathic agents. Many of these were 'induced', both in the sense of having psionic abilities dangerously triggered in those not displaying aptitude (which would often result in hideous and violent deaths), and that many were brainwashed or indoctrinated whilst having their psionic aptitude 'explored' at any one of several offworld 'Institutes'.
