2??? BCD

The initial razing of the planet Earth as we knew it to be.

We had begun the process of relying heavily on nuclear power across the globe; world powers were vain and believed that the resources were plentiful enough to sustain the upper echelon of Earth's population long enough to see the next era. Environmentalists began to sound like doomed prophets, begging their governments to just listen, to acknowledge the projections, the research — but their efforts were futile.

Tensions rose globally as fusion reactors became more commonplace, depleting the heavy water supply due to poor recycling practices; without deuterium to fuel the fusion-powered grids, the future looked grim for every nation. Squabbles broke out along oceanic borders and in international waters, eventually ramping up until it was an all-out nuclear war between every sovreign country. Fossil fuel productions had been scrapped in favor of fusion, leaving the populace without a backup plan.

The first to fall amongst the world powers was the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, China, France, and lastly Russia.

The strategy that was favored was to strike the power production facilities of opposing countries, which caused a devastating domino effect. The resulting nuclear fallout upset the environment, causing global warming to spike suddenly, boiling many bodies of water until they either dried up completely or shrunk to about 40% of their original size; meaning that the planet once covered in 71% water was now only a meager 28%. Billions died, leaving Earth's population dwindling as the years went by. Hardly any civilizations survived; none were bound anymore by geopolitical allyship. Most were so far separated from each other that trade was few and far between, as jet fuel production had nearly been entirely crippled during the war.

The battle that felled the United States was designated the Battle of the Drained Plateau, the "Drained Plateau" being a colloquial name for the area surrounding the former state of Florida, encompassing the Gulf of Mexico and a large percentage of the Atlantic; with the lack of water, it has turned into a desert-like biome. Operation Wildcat was the codename for an operation in which the United Kingdom dropped a hydrogen bomb on the largest fusion reactor in the southern US, annihilating most of the population within mere seconds.