China has been a unique combination of Big Government Communism and Capitalism for centuries. Everything and everyone within their control is a resource to be spent for the betterment of the nation as a whole. Everything belongs to the State, and those who can work are given a basic stipend to live on. Those who produce more are allotted more, and a certain amount of graft and corruption is even encouraged. They have a very lively Black Market that is only lightly policed. It makes China difficult for many to understand. But everything and everyone belongs to the business that is China. All of it is negotiable. Until of course it is not.
It took San Diego years to rebuild after the Yosemite Strike that nearly did us all in. They didn’t take a direct strike, but nearly a dozen different Yosemite Station modules survived reentry until they exploded less than a kilometer above the city. The airburst was, to borrow a big word from some of my friends, catastrophic. Ships capsized, skyways collapsed, and skyscrapers burned like torches. Then the Yosemite Surge caused by the ruins that landed in water came over the sea walls. It flooded the subways. It was not a good day for San Diego. And the Yosemite Winter that followed didn’t improve matters either.
The last scene of Twilight’s fourth season showed her crew looking over the skyline of fallen Detroit. Everybody knew what had happened in Detroit, and some were interested in finding out what Twilight had to do with it in real life, but a different question flowed through the networks during Twilight’s season break. Could Rogue AIs do what Twilight and her crew had done? Could AIs directly kill people, and how could we ever stop them if they decided to kill us all? Old stories of Berserkers and Terminators became popular again as people dug them out of the dustbins and waved them around as gospel examples of the threat of too-intelligent machines. Twilight’s studio considered it the best advertising they’d never bought.
The Blackgun main battle mech was China’s entry into their Sixth Millennium of Chinese history. Designed to fight modern Western Alliance main battle mechs, it carried twin shoulder-mounted autocannons that could swiftly reduce almost any foe to wreckage. Limited flight capability via gravplating and advanced electronic countermeasures made it a difficult mech to pin down, and the Blackgun proved one of the most dangerous foes during the long Hyades Campaign. They became the bane of existence to most Alliance mech units, and were even known to encircle and kill stray battle tanks when they could be pulled out of position. While no longer on frontline service, the Blackguns continue to serve throughout known space in many secondary functions.
The Hyades Cluster forged the Cowboys into what we are now. We were just some good and cocky fighter pilots at first. But the Chinese fought over every rock with every weapon at their disposal, and they left scorched earth in their wakes. We arrived to ruined cities and homeless populations bereft of any law. We were always first to make planetfall. And we laid down the law because someone had to do it. We ended the looting. We helped them rebuild. And that was when we began to wear our suits instead of our military uniforms.
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