History 2045 - 2049

The Virtue of the Vicious Tonight on ‘What the World Wants, with Roberta Valantino’ - Live, Only on AmeriLink, two survivors of the apparent Armenian WMD attack on the peace conference at Bagaran exclusively tell us their stories

(36 hours earlier)

Turkish Air Defence HQ - Armenian Sector

<“Sir, we have blips closing on the western edge of the exclusion zone around the conference”>

<“Steady on soldier”>

Akçay Polat (A man wearing a severe suit with a Turkish flag pin on the lapel) :

“I was with the members of the Presidential guard, stood at the edge of the compound. Everyone was waiting for the Armenians to arrive for the last of the talks.

Hugo Hernandez (A young man wearing the uniform of a US Marine):

“The captain was stood with the Turkish President and the Secretary of State. Dress uniform, the whole kit and kaboodle. It was supposed to be the conclusion of negotiations, and it had been going well. No one was really expecting any kind of fight, no one had their MOPP gear to hand, certainly not the captain in his dress uniform.

(36 hours earlier)

USMC 1st Corps - Armenian/Turkish border - Bagaran

“TacCom reports incoming fastmovers! Bearing West, closing fast!”

“Get the VIPs out now! - Get the Cars started NOW!”

“Incoming!”

“Jesus fuck! GAS! GAS! GAS!”

“Holy mother! N!B!C! GEAR NOW!”

Screams of pain

“Val! C’mon man, C’mon, get it on yourself NOW, Move it Marine!”

“Leave him! Get the VIPs out NOW!”

A P: It was chaos, people started clawing at their faces on the other side of the compound. Then one of the American Marines started running towards our end of the compound screaming ‘Gas! Gas!’”

H H: Someone on the detail managed to dig their stuff out and pass it to the Sec State - one of the Turks did the same for their VIP. Some of us didn’t get it on quite in time and had limited exposure - most of us didn’t get the MOPP on at all, the rest of us tried to get it on them, but they just kept clawing at their mouths, the captain was screaming…. We tried but all we ended up doing was hold hold them down as they died”

(36 hours earlier)

USMC 1st Corps - Armenian/Turkish border - Convoy heading towards Turkey

“No artillery yet…. If they were waiting to hit us then not follow up?”

“Sammy, get HQ on the TacNet! Sitrep!- How’re the VIPs doing!?”

“Sec State got few good lung fulls, Docs treating him now - says he’ll pull through with some lung scarring”

“And the Turkish President!?”

“Looks like his detail was on the ball on this one - some exposure but less than our guy - they trusted them less”

“Good reason by the looks of it”

“They’re on Sir… I’ve got half of our guys and all of the Turks screaming at us wanting to know what’s going on”

“Oh, this is going to be fun….”

H H: “We got into some of the vehicles and bugged out, called it in just in time to have a plane smash in front of us after getting hit by Turkish AA. We’re just lucky the Turks had our back in taking out those Armenians- we never expected it - we had to make a dash back to the lines - we didn’t know if we were going to get shelled or something - all bets were off!

A P: “The Americans brought out my President to the motorcade- they came running towards us wearing gas masks. There were so few of them left. There were supposed to be quite a few press with them, very few made it out. Some of their recordings did though, one of them was even broadcasting live to Link - the world was watching them die there…

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News Articles

Sol - Earth -Orbit

Sol - Earth-Americas

Davos Days “The latest shortages has taken us all by surprise - I knew oil prices would jump back up but to such an extent! I made an absolute killing sure, but the damage this is doing to the global economy has moved from exploitable to apocalyptical. Either none of the oil-producing nations knew the others were going to cut production this hard, or they all knew and are actively trying to disrupt the global economy. Personally, I think it's the former rather than the latter, which does say something about the incompetence with which the world is being run. Short-term profit is important, it can also be incredibly fun. It’s the seat of your pants, wild ride of finance. But sometimes you have to take the long view, and right now these shortages are not going to end. We need to replace oil with something that is reliable and dependable - the system cannot take many more shocks like this. Oil, as a fuel, needs to die”

• Excerpt of Paparazzo recording in a Davos bar showing new Federal Reserve chairman Herbert Blatt and Link’s freshest Starlet, Eva Petrov, flirting

And Davos Nights

“And why, little worm, do you claim that this oil crisis has further complicated the Macroeconomic environment more than previous such instances. What makes this so much worse?”

“Adding on to the loose financing of the original Middle Eastern war, devaluations of the dollar in 36 and 45, the short-lived economic boom of ‘41-44 coupled with the surging food prices following crop failures lead to particular complications with inflationary…”

*A riding crop falls on bare skin*

*whimper*

“Pathetic, you’re giving justifications, not reasons! You know that the consensus amongst policy makers then was that cost-push inflation was outside the influence of monetary policy! What are you going to say about it?”

“A...a...as Dr.Burns said to the ...the Federal Open Markets Committee in May ‘44, the questions comes down to if monetary policy could, and assuming it could even should, do anything to combat any residual persisting inflation rate.

*Additional whip strike*

*moan*

“Worm! You were not called here to regurgitate what others have said!”

*Repeated whip strikes*

“Apple core! APPLE CORE! ...I ...um … I agree with him that the answer to both is no and I believe that we should regard continuing cost increases as a structural problem not amenable to macro-economic measures”

-Corporation Dexia - Département de la Sécurité, dossier J-263BX-11011, niveau d'habilitation de sécurité Rouge12. Transcription de l'enregistrement d'une chambre d'hôtel de Davos montrant le nouveau président de la Banque Centrale Américaine, Herbert Blatt avec CD-DS l'actif "Eva23", pratiquant à répondre au témoignage de M. Blatt devant le comité Voies et Moyens du Congrès américains.

Memo to the Cabinet

The world has closed its doors to free trade when it comes to oil - nations are restricting exports to foreign markets and exporters have harshly cut production gouging purchasers; this has been instrumental in exacerbating the riots, shortages and productivity problems throughout the world.

I anticipate revolt and starvation across the areas of the world least capable of dealing with it, which will then spread like a contagion. The deepening global food crisis will, finally, lead to mass starvation, societal collapse, and mass migration to more stable areas, overwhelming them. There are three courses of action I can see:

• 1. Militarily securing resources - actions in the Middle East can be justified either supporting Saudi as an ally or opposing them in defending the freedom of Iraq, in this way we can attempt to secure one of those nations oil resources

  2. Compel global producers to increase output - either diplomatically or by more direct means, oil shortages can be assuaged and general global stability improved by forcing producers to fulfill global needs.

  3. Ride the wave - by enforcing strict border controls to limit the entry of these starving masses we can attempt to ride out this storm. The global economy will almost certainly collapse during this period, we must look to become as self sufficient as possible and massively reduce oil consumption.

• • The now Infamous ‘Blatt memo’

Sol - Earth - Southeast Asia and Oceania

Industrialized Nations accuse OPEC and Russia of Economic Warfare Industrialized nations at the 2046 Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Jakarta have accused OPEC and the Russian Federation of engaging in ‘naked greed and opportunism’ following the decision by the major oil producing nations to cut production. As one angry delegate stated: “We have been told again and again that since the Saudi earthquakes demand has been much higher than the possible global production - yet the moment that these shortages are abated oil producers find some other reason to cut supply, damage global economies and gouge importers. They can’t blame this one all on the shipping disappearances!”