World War III

World War III was a global nuclear conflict on Earth that occurred between 2044 and 2055. A pivotal event in human history, the war caused the devastation and collapse of many countries, but the United States of the Americas emerged relatively unscathed thanks to its anti-missile defences. Earth was subsequently consolidated under the United States' rule, eventually giving rise to the Federation, which became the first human interstellar superpower and reigned supreme over the first human colonies until the advent of the Empire in 2325.

Background

By the 2030s, major resource problems forced humanity to look to the stars for a way to relieve population pressures on Earth. Commercial organisations planned missions to build the first colonies on the Moon and Mars, as well as explore the rest of Sol for possible safe havens as political tensions on Earth rose to a boil. The onset of World War III in 2044 ground these efforts to an immediate halt, setting space exploration and colonization programs back decades.

Events

World War III saw multiple nuclear exchanges occur between various countries. One of the standard weapons of the conflict was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tipped with a thermonuclear warhead with an explosive yield of 45 megatons. The United States of the Americas was able to avoid suffering any nuclear detonations on its soil thanks to its defensive laser grid, which combined ground turrets with armed satellites to disable inbound enemy missiles before they reached their targets. Most cities outside of the United States, including London, were completely destroyed, but a handful, such as Cambridge, managed to avoid significant damage. When the war finally ended in 2055, the United States was victorious and the only major country left mostly intact.

Impact

Over one billion people and many countries perished in the course of World War III, creating a massive bottleneck in humanity's population and cultural diversity. With no competitors left standing, the United States of the Americas quickly expanded into a multi-continental hyperpower that dominated Earth both politically and culturally. This recovery and expansion phase was made possible with the help of major corporations, which managed to attain previously unheard of levels of influence and heralded the eventual rise of even more powerful megacorporations like Sirius Corporation. As surviving countries voluntarily joined the union for mutual financial and medical aid over the following decades, the United States of the Americas renamed itself the "Federation of the United States", which was shortened to just "The Federation" when Earth's last independent countries merged with it. The Federation consolidated all political power on Earth as the world government and adopted a constitution derived from the constitutions of earlier countries, especially the United States Constitution, but significantly simplified. This would form the basis for the Federal Accord of 2242, which transformed the Federation from an Earth-centric government into an interstellar superpower.