Chimeran War

The Chimeran War was a planet wide conflict between Humanity and the parasitic alien race known as the Chimera. The war began in December 1949 when the Chimera emerged from an extremely isolated Russia and rapidly overtook both continents of Europe and Asia, eliminating/converting millions of the human population. The intentions of the Chimera other than global conquest were mostly unknown until the emergence of advanced alien artifacts and the so-called Chimeran towers that led to some convincing theories that the Chimera once inhabited Earth in prehistoric times and had motivations for Earth for an unknown purpose.

The conflict had stretched for 4 years, in which the Chimera made great headway advancing and expanding across the planet for the purpose of activating the Chimeran Tower network. In the wake of Operation Black Eden, the Chimera's intentions seemingly were to allow Earth to be teleported to another part of space.

Origins
Some 60 million years ago, the alien parasitic race known as the Chimera had previously lived on Earth and was at war with another unknown alien race. This war heavily defeated the Chimera in which the Chicxulub Crater was a remaining evidence of this massive, cataclysmic conflict. In the process the Chimera and its enemies abandoned Earth. All Chimeran and alien technologies, and remnants of that war were left buried and undiscovered until during the present.

By the early 20th century, the Chimera finally returned to seemingly reclaim Earth from humanity and for other reasons. It was widely agreed that the Chimera's presence on Earth was because of the Chimeran virus that was carried on the meteorite that caused the Tunguska Event in 1908. The virus then began to infect the local Siberians and other lifeforms; however, only one Chimera - a local shaman - was reported at this time, transforming after months of curious symptoms (the Crawler strain would eventually evolve to get rid of the months of symptoms and produce a faster result).

Chimeran conquest of Russia
The Chimera were confined to Russia at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, as many men (the gender that was the preferred candidate for infection at the time) were conscripted by the government to fight Germany and Austria-Hungary on the Western Border - far from the Tunguska Event region of Siberia. Therefore, they waited, all the while building up their strength from infecting the local people and wildlife around their point of origin. Sometime after the Great War, the Crawler strain evolved, and whole settlements began to be infected. The Chimera were thorough in these small invasions, as they badly needed to build their numbers and avoid the notice of the Russian people. Eventually, they grew bolder, and soon whole cities were turned into ghost towns overnight. It was during this time that the Red Curtain was built, partly to keep Russia isolated from external affairs, but (apparently) mostly to deny the Chimera a gateway to Europe (why the Russians didn't appeal to the rest of Europe for help in crushing the Chimera before they could amass their strength in full has never been ascertained). Soon most of Russia was conquered. It is during this invasion Russia's military sought to find an immunity to the Chimeran Virus and to create super-soldiers, in which led to their soldiers transformed into the Cloven by Dr. Malikov; whilst the vaccine developed by Malikov did make the soldiers resistant to the virus, it also transformed them into entirely different creatures, who proceeded to desert the Russian army.

By the late 1940s that the Chimera pushed towards the Red Curtain, setting their mysterious plan into motion...

Fall of Europe
From the 1920s to the 1940s, Europe had remained entirely suspicious of Russia's extreme isolation and had prepared a military stratagem should Russia ever invade Europe. In December 1949, the Chimera broken through the Red Curtain and surprisingly and easily slowly overcame shocked and surprised United European Defence military forces. Initially, human forces had thought of the Chimera as a result of a Russian military experiment gone wrong. Through the Chimera's devastation, the UED practically fell apart as European countries struggle to fend for themselves.

During the early phase of the invasion, mass influx of Eastern European refugees frantically move westward and interned in cramped refugee camps in Western Europe, mostly in Germany. Poland fell to the Chimera in 1950. It is then noted during this time that UED intelligence noted a startling lack of refugees in cities that have fallen to the Chimera. Notably, less than a thousand people survive the fall of Poland's capital, Warsaw; a city of two million.

Battle of Berlin
The Battle of Berlin was fought by the German Army, a strong ally of the UED. The Germans deployed their specialized Iron Horse tanks and all men, but the battle was lost when the Chimera sent in their Goliaths. Berlin was lost to the Chimera, and much of it's population was presumably converted.

Siege of Genoa
The Siege of Genoa was a battle between Italian soldiers and the Chimera.

During the Siege of Genoa, Italy, Italian soldiers are overwhelmed by the Chimera, whom they refer to as "the deathless plague." Many regard them as invincible, due to their extreme durability. With these facts crush the soldiers' morale. Hundreds killed themselves rather than fight, die, and possibly become the 'unholy' Chimera, contributing to the battle's loss, although it is unlikely it would have been won anyway. The end of the Siege of Genoa led the fall of Italy to the Chimera.

Britain's Invasion
With the fall of mainland Europe in 1949, only Britain remained free from the Chimera's influence. However, any hopes Britain might be spared were soon dashed when the Chimera found their way across, burrowing under the English Channel in October 1950. The British military collapsed against the might of the Chimera; the primary headquarters of the British Army in London were taken out- after failing to invade the base by conventional means, the Chimera re-diverted the River Thames into the sealed base; only two hundred men of fourteen thousand inside the facility survived. As the Chimera advanced across Britain, wiping out cities to infect and convert their population, as well as establishing their infrastructure, the tattered remnants of the British military abandoned the major population centres and retreated to scattered military bases and outposts throughout the country. Though they pursued a vicious and determined guerrilla campaign, their efforts were no major threat. Western Europe was lost; to all intents and purposes, the Chimera had won.

Operation: Morning Star
Following the fall of much of Europe to the Chimera, the British military, now reduced to fighting a guerrilla campaign in their own country, contacted the USA, hoping to make a deal that might allow them a chance to fight back against the Chimera. The deal, negotiated between US President Noah Grace and Captain Rachel Parker, the highest ranking surviving officer of the British military. In exchange for a total of 12,000 American soldiers being sent to reinforce the British war effort, the British would provide the Americans with intelligence and information on the Chimera, as well as a Chimeran secret weapon for the Americans to study. The campaign, known as Operation: Morning Star, was fought from July 11-July 14 1951, and would become a key turning point in the war against the Chimera.

Operation: Deliverance
Operation: Deliverance was the opening move of Operation: Morning Star; 5000 American troops were to be flown into the city of York, where they intended to rendezvous with Captain Parker and exchange weapons, supplies and troops in exchange for the 'secret weapon'. Unfortunately, Parker and her convoy were ambushed and taken prisoner by the Chimera in Manchester, and the rest of the British military were engaged in a full-scale battle to keep the Chimera from reclaiming it. The American troops at York were on their own, fighting an enemy they knew next to nothing about.

York had been chosen as the landing zone because there had been little Chimeran activity in the area. However, unknown to all until too late, Cloven forces lured a substantial Chimeran army to York, which was lying in wait for the Americans as they arrived. The landing turned into a massacre, with most of the troops shot down by anti-aircraft guns as they tried to land. The surviving American soldiers regrouped under the command of Captain Winters and seized control of an abandoned bus depot. They were able to repulse the Chimera long enough for tanks to arrive to reinforce them, but the Chimera responded with a spire attack that wiped out the remaining forces in seconds. Of the 5000 troops dropped into York, only one survived; a sergeant called Nathan Hale, who survived being infected due to a partial immunity he had gained as a result of being a test subject in Project Abraham

Hale was taken, along with his infected comrades, to a Conversion Center in Grimsby, but he was able to escape the conversion center, freeing Captain Parker (who had been imprisoned there since her capture in Manchester) in the process. The pair were able to summon a rescue, then flew direct to Manchester to join the battle to recapture the 'weapon'. Thanks in no small part to Hale's efforts, the weapon was recaptured.

Operation: Shear
Operation Shear was a British operation that consisted on sealing the tunnels that the Chimera were using to attack various locations in England. The positive result of this operation was an important victory for the British troops in their fight against the Chimera.

Battle of London
Despite their victory at Nottingham, the British would suffered two severe defeats, losing first a major facilty (Northern Command) at Cheshire and then a second (Southern Command) in Bristol. In the wake of these disasters, the British retreated to one of their last remaining outposts in Cardiff where shortly after their arrival, they received a radio transmission from Hale (who had left the British forces shortly after the evacuation of Southern Command to try and infiltrate into Chimeran territory).

At the direction of Nathan Hale, who had managed to infiltrate deep into enemy territory and reach London, Captain Rachel Parker managed to convince the remaining American and British military forces under her command to launch a full-scale assault on London, in the hopes that destroying the Tower inside the city would eradicate the Chimera's presence in Britain. After arriving in London nearly unscathed, the army advanced on the tower, pausing only to destroy Tower Bridge and Southwark Bridge so Chimera forces from outside the city couldn't interfere, then began to lay siege to the tower. Simultaneously, Hale along with several other soldiers, infiltrated the tower, to try to find a way to destroy it from the inside.

The battle was nothing short of a massacre, as human forces were swiftly routed, unable to hold back the unending legions of Chimera that emerged to defend the Tower. But as all seemed lost, the tide turned; Hale and the soldiers had managed to reach and overload the tower's main reactor. In a blinding explosion, the tower was destroyed as its reactor went critical.

The tower's destruction had several major consequences; in the immediate aftermath, Chimeran forces in London collapsed and died within minutes of the Tower's detonation, unable to survive without the presence of the Angels that were killed inside the tower. The London tower's meltdown also triggered a chain reaction that destroyed every tower in Britain; for the first time in the war, the Chimera had suffered a major defeat. Britain was free from the Chimera's stranglehold on Europe, an event that marked a key point in the war.

With combat subsided, the British military began to rebuild their country's infrastructure, search for civilian survivors and try to better understand their enemy. As for Nathan Hale, the man responsible for this victory, he was declared Killed In Action by the American military; though in truth, he was recovered a short time after the battle by SRPA Black Ops under the command of Major Richard Blake, who was under orders to reclaim any surviving personnel attached to Project Abraham. Hale was taken to Station Igloo in Iceland for debriefing and mandatory testing, only to find the base under attack from the Chimera. Hale and Blake crashlanded and joined the battle, assisting most of the SRPA personnel stationed there to escape, though their successes were somewhat marred by the escape of Daedalus, a high-ranking prisoner and the new de facto leader of the Chimera, who got loose in the confusion. Hale and Blake evacuated just before the base fell and fled back to America. Hale was assigned to SRPA's elite forces- the Sentinels- and became instrumental in preparing America for the inevitable Chimeran onslaught.

Operation Overstrike
Following the victory in London, the Maquis, a resistance made up from scattered remnants of the various military forces of Western Europe, approached the British to ask for help in destroying the central Chimeran tower. At the same time, Lieutenant Raine Bouchard approached disgraced Lieutenant James Grayson, who had deserted some months before, after suffering a nervous breakdown following finding his his brother half-converted into a Chimera, and gone on a personal vendetta to destroy every conversion center he could find. After destroying a total of 26 centers, Grayson was recaptured, tried and (though he had become something of a hero to the British people) sentenced to death. The night before his execution, Bouchard offered Grayson a reprieve in exchange for serving as a mercenary under command of the Maquis and provide them with information on the conversion centers. Initially uninterested, Grayson agreed after learning the Chimera had evolved a a new conversion process.

Overstrike got off to a disastrous start; much of the first wave of the operation was shot down by Chimeran Gun Towers built along the coast of France and Germany, but the combined British and Maquis forces were able to destroy these defences and land in Rotterdam. Soon afterward, Bouchard departed along with Grayson and Maquis commander Roland Mallery to investigate a new conversion center in Bonn, where the new process was perfected. The trio got seperated, but Grayson was able to rescue Bouchard after she fell into the conversion process. Finding Bouchard seemingly alive and unharmed, Grayson rescued her from the facility and then, disobeying orders to preserve the center in order to study it, destroyed the center.

At the same time, the Chimera launched a full-scale attack on the Maquis's key stronghold in Luxembourg. Though the base was lost, Bouchard, along with her father Claude were able to finish a serum that would destroy the Chimera's new conversion process, though Claude was killed in the battle, and Grayson discovered that Raine had purposefully allowed herself to be infected to perfect the serum. With Luxembourg lost, the Maquis fell back to their final stronghold in Reims, where they began to plan for their final attack on Paris. Grayson tried to warn his Maquis superior, Mallery of Raine's infection, but the colonel refused to believe him and had him locked up for insubordination. However, Grayson was freed by his two former commanding officers; Colonel Rachel Parker and Major Stephen Cartwright who informed him the battle for Paris has begun.

Battle of Paris
The battle for Paris was fought on two fronts; while Parker and Cartwright led a full-scale attack on the Chimeran tower, Bouchard and Mallery would try to infiltrate a structure called the Chrysalis Lair, the central hub of the Chimera's new conversion process. Having warned Parker and Cartwright of Bouchard's infection, Grayson was given a second vial of serum in case she failed and orders to infiltrate the Chrysalis lair.

Using abandoned catacombs to reach Paris, Grayson reached the Chrysalis Lair, only to find that Mallery and Bouchard had both been infected and both betrayed the Maquis to the Chimera. Grayson killed them both and used the serum to infect the conversion process; the new conversion process was stopped, but in her last moments, Bouchard's human identity overcame her new Chimeran persona and warned Grayson this was but a temporary victory at best, for the Chimera had already evolved a third method to convert humans; not only that, but they had already conquered worlds beyond Earth and they were simply too advanced to defeat. Soon after, the virus consumed Bouchard and Grayson killed her as an act of mercy.

The battle of Paris ended in victory for the human forces; the Paris tower was destroyed and, just like in London, set off a chain reaction that freed much of Western Europe from the Chimera (though they still retained the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and Russia). Even more concerning, fleets of airborne battleships had been seen being built and preparing to assault a new, but as yet unknown target. In the wake of the victory, James Grayson became a colonel with the Maquis to replace Mallery and Bouchard, then with British forces under the command of Parker and Cartwright, began to work to liberate Eastern Europe from the Chimera. Their ultimate goal was Russia; to reach the source of the Chimera's invasion, in the hope it might yield some yet-undiscovered information or insight into their enemy.

Battle of Warsaw
From 1952-1953, not long after the conclusion of Operation: Overstrike, British and Maquis forces under the command of Colonels Parker and Grayson launched a full-scale attack on Warsaw with the intent of liberating it, and Poland, from the Chimera. The battle ended in a human victory; the tower was destroyed on June 12 1953, but at a great cost to the British and Maquis, who suffered severe losses, notably Colonel James Grayson, who disappeared in the battle and has since been declared MIA: however, unknown to all, Grayson survived and managed to infiltrate Russia, though he was somehow infected with the Chimera virus. His fate, at present, remains unknown.

Concurrently, the Chimera, despite the loss of the towers there, launched attacks on both Axbridge and Bracknell, hoping to both regain a foothold in Britain and force Parker to divert troops back to the defence of Britain, causing a reduction of troop numbers in Europe that the Chimera could overwhelm at their leisure. Fortunately, the actions of Specter Team thwarted the Chimera's plan, both preventing them from starting a new invasion of Britain and weakening the defences of the towers in Europe.

Chimera Invasion of Africa
By 1952, the Chimera have spread across Africa at a staggering pace. The Chimera launched a series of initial attacks via airships along the northern coasts on April 6th. At the time, military analysis believed that Africa would prove too hot for the Chimera to survive beyond the coastal regions. However, the Chimera have evolved newer strains of the hybrid virus along with more advanced heat radiation implants that allow their troops to withstand much higher temperatures. Once the Chimera established footholds along the coast they were able to quickly build large quantities of infrastructure, including conversion centers, and factories for producing drones, Stalkers and dropships. In the last few days the Chimera have swept across Africa with truly unimaginable speed. According to British aerial reconnaissance, Chimeran forces have already begun excavation of at least twenty-three towers across the continent. Although their fuel reserves are dangerously low, the British have used naval aircraft carriers to evacuate over 170,000 African civilians from the Northern and Western coasts in the past twelve days.

Chimeran Invasion of South America
On July 30th, U.S. Military forces in Panama City sighted four Chimeran airships flying southeast toward Columbia. In the ensuing three days the airships blanketed the continent with wave after wave of spire attacks. U.S. reconnaissance estimates that the Chimeran targeted every city with population over 100,000. The Chimera then proceeded to excavate Chimeran towers across the continent.

Chimera Invasion of U.S.
In August 1951, the United States of America was first invaded by the Chimera when the state of New York was under a Spire attack. Initially, the infestation was quarantined. Months before, Canada was invaded by the Chimera with similar results in New York, but on a greater scale. This posed a greater threat to America's North-Western regions.

In October 1951, the American Northwest fell to the Chimera from massive Spire bombardments. By 1953, the American Southeast and Northern California fell to the Chimera (though the later was contained). Before the attack on New York, the War Department had plotted the construction of the Liberty Defense Perimeter, a safe zone in the middle of America for the nation's society to outlast and defend against the inevitable invasion.

Ultimately in May 15, 1953, the Chimeran fleet invaded the west and east coasts of the United States. In their purpose, the fleet commanded by Daedalus intended to not only occupy the country but to similarly unearth and activate the Chimeran towers for the Chimera's unknown purpose. Though SRPA and the American military fought hard, and made the Chimera pay dearly for every inch of ground they gained, by May 28th, the Liberty Defense Perimeter fell to the invaders, causing the deaths of 63-80 million people, including President McCullen and his cabinet.

Operation Black Eden
By June 1953, the Chimera had all but overrun America; the remnants of the American military and government took refuge, along with three million civilians, in their last stronghold at the Baton Rouge Protection Camp in Louisiana. Having seemingly achieved victory, the Chimeran fleet had headed south, and was now gathered over the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico, where power from the towers across the world was being channeled into Daedalus's flagship. At the direction of Dr Fyodor Malikov, who suggested detonating a nuclear weapon at the fleet's heart might destroy the entire fleet and thwart whatever plan the Chimera intended to enact, Major Richard Blake took charge of a nuclear fission bomb created by SRPA NT, in preparation for the USA's final gambit; Operation: Black Eden. Blake gave orders that the military would convene at the town of Cocodrie, Louisiana to find a way to reach the fleet, as well as ordering that Nathan Hale, who having been near-fatally injured in a failed attempt by Echo Team to assassinate Daedalus at the Holar Tower six weeks before, be awoken from his medically-induced coma. Though by that stage the virus in Hale's system had progressed so far he would survive only three hours before succumbing once awoken, Blake believed Hale was one of the best chances they had to ensure victory.

Black Eden initially hit a snag when Blake's convoy was ambushed by Stalkers en route to Cocodrie and he was separated from it; fortunately, the team escorting the bomb were able to get it to the town and rendezvous with Hale and Capelli, the only two Sentinels in the immediate area. Locating Blake en route, the trio, along with X-Ray Squad, transported the bomb to a nearby Chimeran shuttle depot, overran the defenders and secured a shuttle, which they then used to infiltrate Daedalus's flagship undetected. Once onboard, the team split into two groups; Blake and X-Ray Squad took the bomb and proceeded towards the reactor; their objective, to get the bomb within 500ft of the ship's reactor and detonated, while Hale and Capelli were to deactivate and destroy any Chimeran defences between the transport team and the reactor.

Unfortunately, in the process, disaster struck; Blake and X-Ray Squad were caught and killed in an ambush, and the bomb was captured by the Chimera. Assuming the Chimera intended to dispose of the bomb, Hale, directed via radio by Capelli, pursued the bomb, only to discover they were taken it to the reactor...to Daedalus, who wished to examine the weapon personally. Making his way to Daedalus's inner sanctum at the reactor, Hale fought his way through Hybrid defenders and Daedalus's telekinetic assaults, and engaged Daedalus in a final battle; Hale directed his fire at the pylons of the reactor, which released a deadly electrical charge, fatally electrocuting Daedalus.

Once Daedalus was dead, Hale activated the bomb, and he and Capelli evacuated from the ship seconds before the nuclear weapon detonated. The flagship was ripped apart by the explosion, while the EMP triggered by the blast wiped out the remnants of the Chimeran fleet. However, too late humanity discovered something terrible had happened; despite what SRPA had done the Earth was apparently transported to another part of space that is placed near a couple of orbiting planets/moon. This had been the Chimera's plan all along, the reason for the world-wide activation of the towers.

After Capelli awoke from the crash and witnessed Earth's displacement, he discovered Hale had succumbed to the Chimeran virus. Under the influence of the Chimera, Hale ominously hinted that "this is the just the beginning." Capelli then apparently killed Hale with a gunshot to the head.

The destruction of the Chimeran fleet and Earth's apparent displacement in another part of space left the fate of the human race and the planet ambiguous. How the Chimeran War ends and who the victors are is yet to be discovered...