Endzeit Geschichte
99 Jahre Krieg ließen keinen Platz für Sieger, Kriegsminister gibt's nicht mehr und auch keine Düsenflieger. Heute zieh ich meine Runden, seh die Welt in Trümmern liegen. Hab 'nen Luftballon gefunden denk an dich und lass ihn fliegen. - Nena, 99 Luftballons
Endzeit, like the Fallout computer game series and my personal evergreen Wasteland, takes place in an “alternate universe.” This means that, sometime after World War II, “real” history and Fallout history diverged, although where this happened is not exactly clear. The alternate reality, henceforth referred to as the “Fallout Universe,” is awfully close to the real world, but with some major differences. The Soviet Union survived well into the 21st Century before it finally splintered in the Resource Wars. This did not hinder the advances in technology, as supercomputers, advanced robotics, and fusion power all flourished before the War.
It should also be noted that the nuclear weapons used in the Fallout universe are not as strong as the nukes in modern arsenals; they are much closer in yield to warheads developed and tested in the late 1940s and 1950s, which means that the level of devastation is slightly different (and potentially far less severe) than it would be in the “real” world. In addition, the dust cloud necessary for nuclear winter never formed, so that phase of nuclear war is unheard of in Fallout.
In 2052, the Resource Wars erupted, threatening to tear the world apart. Famines in Africa and the Indian subcontinent, massive pollution in Southeast Asia, religious extremists in the Middle East and the Pacific Northwest, coupled with an ever-growing need for irreplaceable fossil fuels, led the planet to a breaking point. American corporations, desperate for now-nonexistent cheaper labor and new markets so they could continue to make profits, became more and more brazen about their ties to the American government, which in turn became more and more brazen about its imperialistic tendencies.
China, along with the European Commonwealth, began its own form of imperialism, raiding resources in the American sphere of influence. While the world had not experienced a massive war in over 100 years, the house of cards created by ailing superpowers and limping business interests could not withstand the strong breeze. As the EC and the Middle East squabbled over oil, China turned its attentions towards North America.
There was no one incident that decisively led to the declaration of war on China by America (or on America by China), but the Chinese invasion of Alaska and its still-flowing oilfields in 2066 was all the excuse either side needed. After brutal but indecisive trench-and-plane warfare dragged on for months and then years, it became obvious that both sides had too much to lose to back out – and the corporations running both countries would never allow such a profitable war to quit. America eventually took back most of the Alaskan frontier, but more than a decade of intense warfare left a good deal of the formerly-pristine land a scorched, useless wreck.
In the early morning hours of October 23, 2077, the war became the War, and reached its inevitable conclusion. Spears of fire rained from the sky, destroying the planet’s major cities, polluting the oceans, and creating nightmares no scientist could imagine. Tens of thousands of soldiers, scientists, artists, and wealthy people reserved spaced in enormous underground shelters called Vaults, but because of the constant false alarms, only a fraction made it inside on that day. High-ranking US officials took refuge on an oil platform off the coast of San Francisco, evidence at last of the corporate control over the government and its army.
As the radioactive dust coated the planet and the last matchsticks of civilization snapped, the surface survivors died by the billions, leaving those that were left to try to fend for whatever scraps they could find. The Government, safe on Poseidon Oil’s provided offshore platform, took to calling itself the Enclave and secretly began plotting the return of their “pure” version of humanity to the mainland. Their sense of genetic and mental superiority allowed them to justify their actions, just as regular survivors stronger than the others justified atrocities by the same twisted logic. Fortunately, the Enclave’s influence was limited to the extreme American West by its location on the platform, and the rest of the world limped toward civilization – or descended into darkness – at its own pace.
Eventually, though, the Vaults opened, some at pre-appointed times, others by apparent mechanical or planning errors, releasing the inhabitants to mix with surface survivors in a much-changed United States, on a much-changed planet Earth: the setting for Endzeit.