Wraith: The Ironhorse Story Arc

Wraith: The Iron Horse takes place as the Republic of the Orient (Russia and China) and the Federation of the Americas (North and South America) are maneuvering at the height of World War IV.

The heavy pollution left from the nuclear war of years passed has forced the peoples of the world to rebuild their lives and, more importantly, to find a way off of the planet. NASA, despite thought to the contrary, has survived the nuclear attacks. The Republic of the Orient didn't want to dismantle the American population or their innovative systems -- they just wanted to ensure the American governmental stucture as we know it was ruined.

As a character you will be starting in the small mid-west town of Logansport, Indiana. Your goal at this present time is to survive everything that is put in front of you and carry on with daily happenings, but as all comers and goers will soon find out your main goal is still unclear and mysterious.

Wraith was once the planet Earth before N-Day.

In 1999 the global telecommunications infrastructure had to quickly act under government pressure. It was thought that unless all of these systems were consistenly formatted and brought online, the Y2K bug would occur and it would be the end of the world.

Then it happened. Y2K occured, but not quite the way the citizens had feared. Y2K rolled over and it dawned a completely networked world, led by the USA. It was a brief time of relative peace and prosperity. Then, in September of 2001, enemies of the republic of the United States of America launched an attack against her on the belief that destruction of geographical territory would cripple the country. This attacked failed. It failed because the economic backbone was no longer centered in the US, but was now globally rooted thanks to the "Y2K bug". The enemies of the US retreated, but the republic went after them, a war that landed the US in the Middle East.

The war dragged on. It began to emerge that the cold war between the USA and Russia had never ended. Russia and China, both in bids for power, forged a temporary alliance to ensure that the warzone of Iraq was a long war of attrition that the US would lose. The year 2012 dawned with a US crippled by a sagging economy and huge debt spent fighting the war. Russia and China launched their aggressive new policies. In a single stroke, China annexed Japan and all other Pacific Rim nations by dropping a nuclear bomb on Hawaii. This stroke of hatred served as both a deterrent and a pre-emptive strike against potential US retaliation. Russia then flattened the United Kingdom, with an equally devasting bomb, before shipping an impressive force of soliders to the body of Europe where they quickly surrounded the EU headquarters in Brussels. As the US prepared to retaliate, Russia and China, using the military arms of Japan and Europe, launched a pre-emptive strike against the States. The US, not ready for this wave of war, was caught unaware. And so December 25th, 2014, became known as N-day, the day the Nukes fell.

Major cities were rendered all but defeated in a single day, and the violent shockwaves of the nuclear weapons caused great deformations in the geographical terrain. Washington DC was blown out of existence. The nation then internalized five new mini-federal republics to respond to China and Russia, and the seeds of the continental American alliance began to sprout. This is the beginning of World War IV, presuming that World War III was the United States' war on Terrorism. Most of China's eastern developments were destroyed as the western half of the US launched a massive barrage of nuclear arms from hidden silos as far north as Canada and as far south as Brazil.

Meanwhile, on the east coast, surviving military stations fired nukes smashing out the EU headquarters, and key targets across Russia. Troops stationed in the Middle East moved north and east to take control, and established some new federations on that side of the world. These federations, led by former US generals, were seen as completely independent factions from the United States.

The universities of the Unites States, armed for war now, dealt with liberal peace mongers in an era where peace could not exist. All universities adopted the prefix "fort" upon them, as the last bastion of the education and values of a western society under fire.

Three hundred years later, it only got worse

The world war carried on through a constant battery of cold wars, hot wars, and pure havoc as the dogs of war were let loose upon the planet. Carnage enflamed the world as the fires forged a new look, a new way of life, and a new ethos to those who would bring peace to a planet long poisoned.