Eventually however the geographical superiority of the Believers really began kicking in; larger populations simply did more work, and this translated into massed rovers and infantry regiments wielding state of the art impact rifles turning back the Peacekeeper offensive. The Believing armies ignored the Peacekeepers' Siberian line and instead concentrated everything on breaking U.N. Headquarters, striking deep along the east asian coast, even utilizing the experimental dragoons. It was inevitable that the Peacekeepers would lose, but still they fought on. With the fall of U.N. Headquarters however, the Peacekeepers lost the merchant exchange and the entire line was broken. Losing base after base to the massed assault they capitulated. Mercifully the Believers accepted their surrender and began returning their land to them in exchange for their subservience; their people would be allowed to live in their quaint democracy for as long as it followed the Lady's foreign policies. Peaceful expansion would continue on all fronts, with the Morganites and Gaians both losing land to the Believers (it was claimed, but they had developed no bases on them so they were fair game), but the borders started growing more static and defined.
It was important to take control of the Mediterranean and the Suez to severely limit Gaian competition in the Indian sea (as they held only one port in the Indian ocean) and this would free up resources to deal with the threat of a possible invasion by the Hive, who at this point were a sleeping giant ready to be unleashed - Australia was an industrial dystopia, and its ocean base was conspicuously close to the Believers' Indonesian cities.
In the great game of powers, the African Gaians seemed poised to take the lead of global superpower, rivaled only with the University States of America. Both were technocratic paragons of infrastructure development and scientific advancement, ploughing ahead in power whilst the Believeres, Hive and Spartans were mere regional powers at best and backwards failed states at worse.
Everything changed when the Spartans attacked.
The University of America's most prized cities in the fertile lands of south america, mexico, texas and florida were captured - even their Headquarters lost. Many cities were burnt to the ground under the pounding of artillery shells and impact rifles, turning all of mid America into no man's land - the only feature left being a single perfectly straight road spanning half the length of the North American continent, and one last Fortress sitting in the middle, holding the key to Canada and American domination.
The Gaians rushed to the aid of their ally, and the Hive rushed to the aid of the Gaians. The industrial might of Australia brought naval supremacy in the pacific whilst the Spartans and Gaians traded blows in the Atlantic; due to the distances and logistics involved however no great legions could be brought to the aid of the University and so nothing could stop the great legions of the Spartans shelling the beleaguered Americans.
The Believers took this opportunity to strike an alliance with the Hive (who was about to declare war on the Believers, but needed their help), an alliance with the University and an alliance with the Gaians. Most importantly however was that the Believers then went about trading, cajoling and extorting all the technology from all her desperate allies to the point where my little fundamentalist zealots went from being the backwards giant to the most scientifically advanced little nation on planet Earth. Needless to say, this was probably a mistake on the Gaians part, but they will have to learn why later.
The next step was becoming governor of the planetary council, which was easy enough as everyone liked the Believers more than the Spartans.
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Topic: How did you last *own*? (Read 1350305 times)