History

## Early 2000s

In the Early 2000s, digital and electronic technology was the nr. 1 growing industry. Tech giants such as Apple, Google and Microsoft were earning billions and billions of dollars. The United States dominitated global culture.

However, the feared World War Three changed all that and turned all hope of a better future to ashes.

The day of crisis is usually cited as January 1st, 2016. LOAD, an anonymous cybergroup, launched a rival to the Deep Web, known as Liberty Network (L.net), that could be accessed only through a device known as a LibertyDrive.

L.net was completely anonymous, written in an unknown programming language with encryption never seen before. Another vital part of L.net was that it communicated via different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Users of L.net could set up Liberty Nodes (L.nodes), which consisted of small radio tranceivers equiped with minicomputers. L.net communication used varying frequencies using a hidden algorithm to make it almost impossible to trace.

There was one downside to using the electromagnetic waves, which was speed. Practically only small files (usually smaller than 1 MB) could be transfered quickly over the network. Much of the technology was open source and users quickly developed tools to post images and such. L.net quickly took over as thé source of internet criminality and secret meetings. L.net is seen as one the primary sources of the looming anarchy that led to World War Three.

On the L.net, the Liberal Anarchist Movement (LAM), was founded. The LAM was basically a terrorist movement aimed at achieving total war between the major powers of the world, and to let a new arnarchist society rise from the ashes. Members of LAM, known as Lambs, planted bombs all over the Western world, killing hundreds in the 2nd half 2016. The big difference, however, between LAM and other terrorist groups, was that they never claimed any of the bombings. These unknown bombers inspired an even greater fear in the Western population. Even smaller, less important countries such as Estonia were hit with bombing attacks.

In February 2017, a large coalition of Western intelligence agencies (both signal and ordinary intelligence), led by the United States' NSA, CIA and FBI, was founded to try and stop these attacks. The coalition was named the Joint Anti-Bombing (JAB) Task Force (in full JABTF or simply JAB).

Eventually, in August 2017, after almost twothousand people had died and the fear was at its highest point, a LAM member tipped JAB. He was, however, actually a double-agent, and his only purpose was to lead JAB to believe it was a coalition of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other nations who where organizing the bombings. He used the username PsychoSauceMaster. Using his "tips", and using clues left behind (on purpose) by LAM, JAB published their report in December 2017. All evidence pointed towards a North Korea conspiracy.

The NATO decided now that North Korea had gone too far, by this time, the bombings were still increasing, and over sixthousands people had died. Many feared to leave their homes, and the economy was in decline. The world was on the brink of going into a second, much deeper recession. 2016 had seen minor economic growth for the West, but 2017 had been a steep decline until then. However, Russia, China and North Korea's economies were finally stabilizing and growing again.

On January 2nd 2018, the NATO assembled the 1st NATO Army Group, consisting of a coalition of the US, Canada, the UK and France. On January 27th, the NATO assembled the 2nd NATO Army Group (joint Germany/Netherlands, Beligum and Luxembourg), the 3rd NATO Army Group (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Turkey) the 4th NATO Army Group (Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia) and finally the 5th NATO Army Group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and Poland). Non-NATO members Sweden and Finland provided assistance to the 4th Army Group, Australia to the 1st Army Group, Ukraine to the 5th Army Group, Switzerland, Austria to the 2nd Army Group and Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia to the 3rd Army Group. Japan and South Korea operated as host countries in the Joint Japan-Korean 6th Group (JJK6G)

This coalition, known as the Joint NATO-Allied North Korean Operation Force (JNANKOF, or JNKF), immediatly, without awaiting approval from the UN, set up Operation Northface. Mass troop deployment to Base Northface near Seoul, South Korea, began on February 2nd. 1st NATO Army Group forces had already arrived for preparations previously. The projected size of the force was a full 180,000, with 200,000 South Korean and 40,000 Japanese troops assisting. The 180,000 consisted only of the 1st and 2nd Army Groups, the 3rd to 5th were assigned to defend Europe in case of trouble.

On February 20th, all members of the JNKF declared war on North Korea, and crossed the DMZ the following day. In 2 days, the coalition arrived in the fields south of Pyongyang, where the North Korean army, almost 800,000 soldiers had prepared a strong defense. In what was known as the Battle of Kangnam on February 23rd, the North Korean forces were utterly destroyed by the coalition of 420,000 heavily armed soldiers with advanced weaponry. NATO aire strikes reduced most of the defensive structures to dust and killed an estimated 10,000 early on. When the two frontlines came in range, the superior weaponry of the JNKF annihilated the front of the North Korean forces. After an estimated 100,000 deaths on the North Korean side, and around 800 on the side of the JNKF, Kim Jong-il and a large number of other high-ranking officers commited mass suicide, it was estimated that over 800 members of the government and family's household committed forced suicide. The remaining officers then capitulated immediatly.

After taking control of the capital and installing a new provisional government led by South Koreans, the JNKF split their forces over numerous bases throughout the pacific, but they did not withdraw. The fate of the world would be decided by a special UN Congress, which would be held in South Africa.