The Fall of Samarkand

11 years before the Unified Calendar, Saeculo Concordiae

United Forces thrust deeply into the last refuge of the Sarmatian League, forcing the final throes of they who sought to rule all of Terra by the words of their prophet and the might of their swords.

It was a period of unparalleled strife. The once glorious American Republic succumbed to the plague designated the "End of Days" virus, a weapon created by a resilient and fatalistic cult bent on raising the dead to usher in their promised apocalypse. However the dead did not rise, it was the living that were infected and became like wild animals. Eventually two powers would arise from the ashes and contest for control of the continent in a fleeting internal conflict. The victors were still recovering, purging the diseased and rebuilding their cities, when a plea for help came from the Old World.  Europe's heart was being ravaged by the unchecked might of the Sarmatian League, an alliance of nations new and old that were once thought to be pacified and had thus been thoroughly ignored. The League was not pleased with the treatment their brethren received in the West and had decided that it was time to bring their version of justice to the land that had repelled it time and time again in ages past.

When the new United America heard to call to battle, it did not hesitate. The war was long and bloody, unlike anything seen before. The advent of nuclear inhibitor-fields generations earlier could not dull man's desire for the death of his enemies and so a 27-year conflict was waged through advanced conventional means. Ballistic munitions, explosives, vehicles, everything down to the combat knives used by infantry had all seen vast improvements in design and materials. The more time passed, the more impossible the concept of peace became. For the first time in history humanity's population fell nearly 30% from one generation to another and not by disease or natural disaster but by the hands of their own kind.

Even when the tide turned and one city fell after another, there was no surrender. Ever-growing desert sands and dust storms were punctured by the thunder of guns and screams of the dying. Eventually Samarkand was the last, smoke and death choking the landscape for miles and miles. When it was finally over, the First Citizen of what would become a United Earth Government was faced with the decision of what to do with the captured civilian populations. There were those that advocated for reconciliation and those that sought utter annihilation. In his wisdom, the Princeps decided that there had been enough slaughter and that the real thing that needed to die was humanity's old beliefs and superstitions that had led men astray for far too long. The defeated would not die, they would lose as much of their culture as was possible and serve the greater good in a way he found befitting. Never to see their homeworld again, never to hear their calls to prayer, forced to work in the mines and industrial wastelands of the terraforming project that would not be ready for proper human habitation for another 70 years.

Colonists of Mars.


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Yeah I've been listening to more Manowar(recommended listening: "Call to Arms") while I work, it's definitely having an effect XD