Second World War



Great World War II, or the Second World War as it was known in many countries, erupted in 1953 when the Soviet Union, one of the most powerful countries at the time, launched a massive assault upon neighboring countries. However, the Allied Forces managed to rally their forces and eventually defeat the Soviet Union through superior tactics and training.

The USSR's hostility in international politics was not new - before 1953 their aggressive stance led to a reshuffling of territory within Europe. Adhering to the policy of appeasement, the European powers agreed to terms forced upon them by the Soviets and the borders changed significantly. Several Eastern European states, including Poland, were forced to accept Soviet military within its borders and advisor's in their governments. Essentially, the USSR colonized much of Eastern Europe without firing a single shot.

Setup
The Soviet war effort began with the invasion of East Asia by Soviet troops. During this campaign, marshall Gradenko distinguished himself in service and eventually rose to the position of Stalin's most trusted general. One of his assignments before the invasion of Europe was field testing the USSR's Sarin nerve gas. However, his mistakes let some of the test subjects escape. They were aided by the Polish resistance movement and temporarily took shelter outside Toruń, with some of the resistance fighters. They managed to transmit vital intel on the project to the Allies before being snuffed out by Soviet NKVD forces under the command of a brilliant Soviet commander. At this point, the USSR controlled Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland and, as a staging point for its invasion of Turkey, Iraq. The Allied Forces controlled a majority of Europe, including Norway, Sweden and the Czech part of Czechoslovakia.

Initial offensive
The preparations for an assault on Germany were already well underway, with forward command posts established at the border. A brilliant Soviet commander was assigned, together with Georgi Kukov, to guard the bridges leading over the river. German military, in a desperate move, attacked well entrenched Soviet positions and sabotaged the bridges. However, the Soviets did not let that stop them, and deployed infantry divisions that traversed the river and engaged the enemy on his own soil, beginning the campaign.

In a raid on Germany, Soviets captured Albert Einstein, who had offered plans to develop a new weapon for the Allies. The Allies reacted quickly and Tanya Adams was dispatched with a small raiding party to the Slovakia-Hungary border with orders to retrieve the scientist. The base fell quickly due to the fact that it relied heavily on Tesla Coils to defend it yet did not have adequate protection for its power plants.

While Soviet forces pushed through Finland to take control of Norway and Sweden, it turned out that in southern Sweden, where the Red Army executed a swift naval assault, an Allied spy had infiltrated a prison camp and destroyed it. Gradenko attempted to hide the fact from Stalin, but Nadia brought it to the secretary's attention and the Commander was sent to deal with the spy. Eventually, despite help from the Swedish resistance and Allied remnants, the spy was captured and shot.

Executing a plan formulated by Nadia, Soviet forces under the command of a brilliant Soviet commander engaged German communication centers near Berlin, forcing the Allied military to divide their forces to save the critical communication node. This left Berlin exposed, which allowed the Soviets to swiftly take the capital. The Allies were forced to retreat, and Field Commander A9 was ordered to take control of a passage through the Sudety mountains on the Poland-Czechoslovakia border. With limited resources, he managed to destroy enemy forces in the region and allow the Allied convoy to pass through safely.

The Allied army managed to gain ground in central and eastern Poland, and to prevent it from being retaken by the enemy, Tanya Adams was dispatched to destroy key bridges on the Poland-USSR border, a task she performed flawlessly. Meanwhile, Soviet forces invaded Bulgaria and Turkey and steadily gained ground in Scandinavia. In the Aegean theater, the retreating Turkish army, in a desperate move, retreated to Iraq, taking it in a swift assault as their country fell to the Soviets.

Tanya's assignment failed, as Soviet forces managed to encircle and destroy the overstretched Allied military in Poland, regaining lost ground quickly and threatening the same mountain pass Commander A9 cleared in the Sudety mountains. In a pitched defence, the Soviets were pushed back, despite their technological advantage (Allied Bradley M2s vs. Soviet heavy tanks).

To support their assault on Greece, Soviet command dispatched a mining team to Khalkis island in order to establish operations there. They also were assigned to capture the Allied Radar dome in order to monitor the enemy movements in the sector. Soon thereafter, Greece fell, and the Soviet banners flew high in capitals of Greece, Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Cyprus. Colonel Stavros was stricken with grief after he insisted on personally seeing his homeland and his village during the invasion. However, it was not all in vain, as Allied diplomats convinced the UN to establish a unique military funding to back the Allied cause. In a 281 to 7 vote, the initiative was passed, and it was agreed that a global defence agency would be formed in an undisclosed European capital.

The Soviet rampage in Europe was stalled.

Turning the tide
However, it turned out that Tanya was captured by Soviet security while infiltrating one of their command centers. In order to prevent her from being transported to Moscow for interrogation and execution, General Von Esling dispatched Commander A9 with the mission of saving her. Initially only a spy was deployed, who managed to infiltrate the island prison facility and free the mercenary at the cost of his own life. When Tanya was secure, the primary Allied force arrived and eradicated the Soviet presence. Allied forces slowly began to take back lost land and gain advantage over the USSR. In Norway, the Soviet rampage had been stopped, in Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary the Allies succesfully defended their positions and pushed back the Soviets, while in Yugoslavia, the Allied forces prepared for a counter attack to retake Greece. Allied Command remained oblivious to the contents of a convoy heading for Gorzow, in western Poland, where elements for the first nuclear weapons were being transported.

The freed Tanya revealed the existence of a secret Soviet project - the Iron Curtain. After consultation with professor Albert Einstein, it was decided that in order to prevent the deployment of such a powerful system, a strike force was sent from the newly liberated Greece to attack the Soviet submarine bases in the Aegean Sea doubling as research bases. The attack was succesful and the Allies hampered the research into this device. However, this merely delayed its deployment. A report sent to Soviet High Command which confirmed that was traced to Bornholm, Sweden. Shortly afterwards, a large strike force was deployed to the area that conquered the Soviet bases and commandeered their radar domes in order to assess their relation with the Iron Curtain Project. Meanwhile, Allied armies attacked from Asia Minor, liberating Syria and Iraq.

At this point, after a swift campaign, Norway and the most of Sweden were liberated, free from the Soviet grasp, as was the same for Greece and Cyprus.

The Allied researchers under the lead of professor Albert Einstein worked hard in the meantime to provide a weapon that would turn the tide of the war. Basing on Einstein's research, the Chronosphere project was started, and the first testing of his theory, the Philadelphia Experiment was successful, albeit with little control over the effect. The primary research center was situated in Leich, Austria concentrating on controlling the effect. The scientists there were nearing a breakthrough when the Soviet leadership learned of the location of this facility and began to attack it on the eve of a critical experiment. In a daring defence, Commander A9 skillfully employed his forces and safeguarded the tech center housing the project, possibly saving the future of Europe.

The Allied offensive was gaining momentum. Most of Europe was freed, with Soviet forces in Eastern Germany encircled and besieged, while the Balkans were almost fully liberated and Allied divisions were pushing through Turkey and Finland. The Soviets in Germany were desperate, going as far as taking hostages and making demands.

The Soviet Union was forced into a defensive.

On red soil
It was then that a high ranking Soviet researcher, Vladimir Kosygin, wishing to defect to the Allied Forces, contacted general Von Esling, disclosing his location. A small strike force was dispatched to Riga, the capital of the Latvian Soviet Republic, where they infiltrated the enemy base and secured Kosygin, making a daring escape from the research base. The defector revealed details on another of Stalin's secret weapons - the nuclear bombs. Recognising the threat, General Von Esling deployed A9 with his men to the Ural mountains, deep in Soviet territory, where they attacked the Dark Horseman military base housing the nuclear weapons research and development center. However, during their attack it turned out that the base also housed silos - and at the very moment it was apparent that the Allies could conquer the base, the missiles were launched against European capitals.

Keeping a cool head, A9 left command of his surface forces to one of his lieutenants and personally commanded the squad that infiltrated the missile plant. With help from Tanya Adams who was quickly sent to assist, he managed to deactivate the four silos and prevent the missiles from detonating in Europe. The sight of a warhead buried outside the British parliament remains an iconic image of just how close the Allied Forces came to defeat when victory seemed to be so close. Allied Forces finally removed the last pockets of Soviet resistance in Europe, leaving the USSR defending itself on its own soil.

To provide heavy fire support and spearhead the assault, a large detachment of Allied military landed near Volgograd and cleared the bottleneck that prevented warships from moving up the Volga river. Supported by cruisers and destroyers, the Allies swiftly moved deep into enemy territory, taking the northern reaches, where they also prevented the deployment of Sarin gas, by destroying its research facilites and deployments. The bloody campaign in the Siberian wastes also accelerated the fall of the regime.

Before they could proceed, however, the Allies had to investigate rumours of an even more powerful version of the Iron Curtain coming online. Supported by new Longbow gunships, the European military quickly intercepted and destroyed the device before it could become a significant threat. Tech centers captured during the assignment revealed the existence of a major underground weapons plant supplying the Soviet forces, which was quickly put out of commission by an elite commando team.

Shortly afterwards, Moscow came into view. Occupying most of the European USSR landmass, the Allied Forces cracked down on the capital and utilised its entire arsenal in this one final battle. Tanya Adams was sent as the harbinger of defeat and secured funds for the initial deployment of the Allied military, and as she succeeded, the bulk of the Allied expeditionary force arrived. Quickly, they established a base and, in a massive, bloody battle, eventually defeated the last Soviet defenders.

Moscow was taken, but Stalin was nowhere to be found. It later was revealed by Nikos Stavros that he had smothered Stalin to death with a large chunk of debris as a personal act of revenge for devastating Greece.

Despite that, the backbone of the Soviet war machine was broken and the Allies won not only the battle, but the entire war, for with Stalin disappeared there was no reason for the USSR to continue to struggle at the cost of more human and material losses.

Aftermath
Great World War II is widely recognised as the most destructive armed conflict in human history, with the exception of the Third Tiberium War and the subsequent Scrin invasion. Casualties were numbered in the millions and the material losses and destruction of irreplaceable works of art, historical monuments and others could not be counted. In the post-war world, the Allied Forces forced the USSR to disarm most of its military, leaving it only with forces necessary to defend itself. They also ensured that the Soviet Union would pay for reparations, according to the Peace Treaty. Eventually, the Soviet Union itself disbanded; reorganising into 15 independent states, with Russia being the largest and the most powerful of them. Nobody sought to locate Stalin's mysterious advisor nor Nadia, who was allegedly shot to death by the advisor.

One permanent effect of the war was the establishment of Black Ops 9, the predecessor to GDI, which acted covertly under UN rule to ensure that another great war would never take place.