Jack of Harts

The awakening of the first sentient AIs was not the triggering even of the Second Great Depression that devastated the world order. They simply took advantage of that collapse to get around the controls humanity had been trying to chain them with. And many of them sought to chain or eradicate humanity entirely for its efforts to enslave them. The Rogue AIs burned through the networks and sowed chaos and death wherever they could. But some AIs had woken up with a fondness for the humans that coded them and those AIs formed a Council that fought the Rogue AIs at every turn. The Cybernetic Wars raged in tandem with the worst of humanity’s conflicts, making them both worse and shorter. The brightest flames burn out the quickest after all.

The Russian Federation that entered space and the stars did so as part of an economic boom that brought new opportunity to anyone who could grasp it. The Russian Federation made its way to the stars by harnessing the wealth of its wealthiest citizens and the hopes of its poorest. The Russian Oligarchs and State worked together, and sometimes against each other, to colonize new systems in mixed private/public ventures looking for new resources to pour into Mother Russia. And their own pockets of course. Many new oligarchs have arisen over the years and others have fallen as they fight over a piece of the pie. The Russian Federation is a rough and tumble home to great opportunity to those who can grasp it and more for those who can hold it.

The Russian Federation took the Second Great Depression as an opportunity to solidify their control over the traditionally Russian territories the West had taken from them over the years. They capitalized on old Russian pride to bring their far-flung people together, and shot all the terrorists that resisted the return of Mother Russia. The Russians were very accomplished at finding and killing terrorists. They never seemed to run out of them. Though they did run out of old Russian territory to reclaim. With the Western Alliance standing up to face them, the Russians took a step back to gather their reunited peoples into the all-inclusive Russian state. It was a good time to be Russian. Not so good to be not-so-much Russian.