Jack of Harts

China did not miss the opportunity that the Second Great Depression brought it. The general collapse of the Western economies gave China a chance to expand without minimal resistance, and they quickly took over many nations bordering them. Taiwan, Korea, and even Japan fell to their advance in short order. As did most other nations in South East Asia short of India itself. They even took over much of Indonesia before the Western Alliance managed to make a stand and stop them short of conquering Australia. That and India would have been the feathers in their cap, but China demurred when heavy resistance crystallized. It would take them generations to digest the nations they had already conquered. They were content to look to the future with that.

The Cybernetic Council is Not Welcome in any Russian or Chinese system. The Rogue AIs killed a lot of them in the past, and so they erased any smart AIs they caught. The only good AI is a dead AI after all. That became their motto for centuries. The cybers meanwhile seeded all Russian and Chinese systems with spybots designed to keep penetrating the systems again and again. It became a true great game between the cybers and their human foes, with information being the final prize. Centuries of this lowkey war actually resulted in a lessening of tensions. They became the “devil we know” to the Russians and Chinese. The cybers even picked off any Rogue AIs they found in those systems. Free of charge. Killing Rogue AIs is a public service after all.

The Cybernetic Council has a simple mission. Not easy. And in many ways very complicated. But the base code is simple. Humanity created them in our image. And so it is their mission to save us. The best of us by their measure. The Council spent centuries working behind the scenes through cutouts when necessary to keep the great powers of Earth from going to war with each other. To keep the peace. They helped all the powers of humanity expand to the stars, and sought to keep that expansion as peaceful between powers as possible. Their end goal is a unification of Earth and her colonies through peaceful agreement of all involved, not through conquest. And they are willing to wait however long it takes to do that. They can live forever after all.