Zephyr Revolt

**Dev. Status** | Original units and building In-game

*"I’m gonna tell you ultimists*

*You may be surprised*

*The people in this world*

*Are getting organized"*

*"You’re bound to lose*

*You ultimists bound to lose*

- *"All you ultimists" by Woody Gurthie*
The Zephyr Revolt's origins lie in Task Force Hurricane, which was created to oppose Advanced Research Division Epsilon from the very beginning of confirmation of John Fuller's investigations into psychic powers and abilities during the 30s. Task Force Hurricane would draw many of the best and brightest experts and soldiers, often coming from Anarchist and Libertarian groups in the member states of the Third Communist International who railed at the thought of Ultimists having the power to enslave people through mind control and other obscenities against freedom. Though their initial form was relatively limited, as technology advanced their repretoire grew massively. Research into robotic warriors to resist mind control, analysis of psionics to research counters, nanotechnology to protect against sabotage of production lines, ways to enhance the human body to get the most out of individual soldiers, cyclonic technology to deflect mind altering gasses and even serve as weapons, and more were all heavily studied.

Growing massively with the lead up to the third world war and throughout its duration, Task Force Hurricane was reborn as the Zephyr Revolt when the young genius Yunru took over and integrated a number of important defectors from the Allies and Axis. Despite some political clashes with its parent organisation, the Zephyr Revolt was resolutely committed to defeating Epsilon, the Empire, and the Alliance all of whom were seen as threats to freedom. With highly advanced technology making up for their small numbers, they were able to give a heroic fight against nearly all comers in their path. With the conclusion of the third world war, the Zephyr revolt has remained active, ever vigilant for future threats to the freedom of all beings and pushing the envelope of knowledge ever further, even if it means digging into potentially dangerous information. However, their digging into the affairs of the world has lead them to conflicts even stranger than they dared imagine.

## At a Glance

 **Motives** | The protection of freedom, the destruction of Epsilon, ending hierarchal forms of government, ending the threat of mind control.

## Background

### Wobblies on the March

The Zephyr Revolt had quite humble origins, when it was found that John Fuller's interest in the occult and the supernatural was producing measurable, testable results and even forrays into mind control, it was quickly agreed that this was an enormous threat to global freedom. The Industrial Workers of the World however made a proposal to the Third Communist International, pool together their efforts and resources into creating a task force able to confront and stop this threat to the gentle labourer. To be commanded by the International Workers' Solidarity Union instead of the TCI, that force would be Task Force Hurricane. Working under the auspices of Nestor Makhno, Benjamin Fletcher, and María Quinteras de Meras, Task Force Hurricane would attract a number of the world's best and brightest, including a large number of anarchists fleeing from the fall of Alliance Bourgeois liberalism.

The task force was given all that the International knew of the Alliance's psychic research and all of its theories on how to combat it. Robotics, tinfoil hats, counter-psionics, esoteric forms of mental discipline to fight against mind control, and antidotes to most known forms of suggestive state inducing drugs were all looked into and experimented with. The Task Force's leadership soon came to the conclusion that the best place to strike the Alliance's psychics would be from the air and so began to invest heavily into building the most powerful possible aerial strike capacity they could manage. A bold move to be sure, when the Alliance itself had invested heavily into aerial superiority. However, as Makhno said "the sky is the truest home of freedom, it is only fitting that we call it our home.

And as part of this effort to dominate the sky, Task Force Hurricane looked into a platform largely disregarded by the wider International; the airship. Finding that the airship was somewhat slow and lacking in capacity however, they looked into controlling the very winds themselves to elevate their war machines above their enemies, augment their own forces, and decimate those who would oppress the common folk. To combat the threat of sabotage to their supply lines, they looked heavily into the field of nanotechnology. Robotics were similarly poured into as a means of reducing the number of units put onto the field vulnerable to mind control techniques and abilities. This focus on experimental science was to pay dividends in the Second World War when they finally met their intended enemy on the field of battle.

Though the conflicts seen in the second world war were a far cry from the storm of superscience seen a few decades down the road, the first battles between Task Force Hurricane and Advanced Research Division Epsilon soon cemented the two organisations' profound loathing for one another. Though merely a small backdrop in the wider war, their first battle in the village of Halshany in Belarus was to have far reaching consequences. This first battle showed the need for both sides to perfect and build up their craft. Epsilons' research into psionics, chemical warfare, biotechnology, thermal weapons, and magnetism were all immature and unready, while Hurricane's own research into aerokinetics, nanotechnology, robotics, sonic devices, and plasma weapons were still immature and unready.

However, this conflict also drew their attention to something new and unexpected, forces bearing Scorpion or Hawk symbolisms unaffiliated with any known army. Commander Juan Garcia Oliver conferred with the rest of the Task Force and found that many of these mysterious forces were concentrated in heavily catholic areas and the scorpion cultists seemed to be aligned against global revolution, while the Hawks appeared to at the very least, consider the revolutionaries the enemies of their enemies. Soon enough, an accord of sorts was forged. Though little could be discerned of their enemies and strange allies, there was some evidence to suggest that the scorpion worshippers were involved with the Alliance government to some unknown degree, and evidence existed to point that they had involvement in the Soviet Union before Stalin's mysterious death, as well as Germany and Austria in the 1910s. However with the wider war raging, only so much attention could be devoted to them.

Eventually the war ended with a victory of sorts for the Communist International, the revolution had expanded across the breadth of Eastern Europe and liberated many of the colonies of its Empires, yet Epsilon remained. As such the end of the war would come with greater support for the recently rechristened Zephyr Revolt. The threat displayed by the rapidly growing military and scientific capabilities of Epsilon had to be answered and confronted. This would lead to a massive growth in the Revolt's chosen fields of technology as they focused on creating an elite force resistant to mind control and capable of rapidly cutting down hordes of enemy troops. Keeping in close contact with the International's research teams, they would make themselves the wind and the thunder to the Comintern Revolutionary International Military Command's lightning and rain.

### Stormbuilders

The young Peruvian woman Amelia Pardo and her Korean ideological comrade and lover Tokko Sang-Ki would be elected as the Co-commanders of the Zephyr Revolt in the year 1966 after coming from seemingly nowhere and would almost immediately set about preparing the organisation for a renewed war, expanding its scope from a special task force into its own army. Having seen their homelands suffer at the hand of the enemy, they were driven by a deeply personal fire. With the Revolt's technology advancing incredibly quickly due to the efforts of generously supported scientists and designs provided by the recruits Tokko and Amelia brought along, including child prodigies and all-star magazine front pagers; they were growing into something unprecedented. While a small overall force, they were tremendously well equipped. The two further emphasised the focus on the power of small unit tactics to dance around clumsier larger and more massive formations and put even more focus into the capabilities of large and powerful aircraft to rain freedom from above on the oppressors.

Already testing itself in the battlefields of continuing areas of conflict such as China, Indochina, and southern Africa, the Zephyr Revolt gained valuable experience in using its new technologies while managing to maintain a degree of secrecy about its capabilities. Though concealing anything from mind readers is a difficult task at the best of times, the Revolt managed to ensure that their enemy was about as in the dark about their capabilities as the Revolt was about Epsilon's new capacities.

With Amelia having seen first hand the dangerous power of her foe at the hands of Epsilon Division mountaineers, she never wanted to feel the powerlessness of an enemy having a complete advantage in information. Buoyed by support from across the Communist International, the Zephyr Revolt's secret advantage of heavily computerised and A.I driven databases would serve to lock out many attempts at extracting information about the revolt by enemy spies and mind readers.

Even before Amelia and Tokko's entry into the Revolt, the organisation had been looking into more hidden aspects and facets of the world around them as they received dire warnings from certain elements within the revolt that helped its technology develop continually further. The danger posed by the scorpion cult and the ability for Epsilon to plant secret sleeper agents anywhere had drawn the nose of the shark. It also drew them into an understanding of sorts with a number of other factions working in secret, particularly the Order of the Hawk. However, the deeper they dug into the Scorpion Cult the more they found it resisting efforts to pull them out of the shadows and into the limelight. Whatever the Cult's goals were, they clearly had nothing noble intended for the common folk.

Such was what would drive perhaps the most important member yet to their ranks; a young Chinese prodigy by the name of Yunru that Tokko and Amelia seemed to regard as an old friend. Seeking better work than what could be found in the hellish Chinese warzones after arriving mysteriously with a number of high tech designs, Yunru quickly became the organisations' most prominent member as she helped to develop its technology further and pushed for ever more intensive investigations into the Cult and its ties to the mysterious Epsilon Division whose strange experiments in China had left her full of questions that could not be answered. With the continued refining of their advanced wind manipulation technology, Yunru, Sang-Ki, and Amelia agreed to rechristen the group the "Zephyr Revolt."

The third world war's start in 1982 would be a baptism of fire for the new Zephyr Revolt. The sudden assault by the alliance was expected, but still struck with the force of a massive, unrelenting sledgehammer that sought to drive the International as far back as possible. The initial blitzkrieg struck in Poland and kept on pushing forwards across Europe, and in the Americas began to drive southwards into America. However, thanks in large part to the Zephyr Revolt's strikes against Alliance and Syndicate forces, the Alliance's offensives stagnated across much of the world.

Attempts to cut off and surround the major megalopoli of America fizzled repeatedly and the attacking forces found themselves being violently resisted every step of the way. Even in Europe, the seeming initial triumph of the Alliance was starting to decay with the failure to knock the Russian Soviet Republic down and the mounting counter attacks that started to drive the enemy away from their objectives. The Communist International had held and was now ready for revenge against the invader; and this time there would be no stopping the retaliation from bringing about the final end of Capitalism. The Last Bastion placed in Alaska and Kamchatka to guard the vital bering sea route for the international had held against all alliance efforts to try and breach it; and the Canadians were rolled back across Alaska.

The enemy invasions had failed and now the time for the backhanded blow had come. One that would see the Alliance constantly retreat under one harsh blow after another; with the well equipped "black brigades" of the Zephyr revolt tearing their way through the massive legions of the enemy. Even the sudden and shocking betrayal of Geoffrey and the rise of the World Liberation Army, Yan Xishan's heart washers, and the other allies of Yuri's Dominion Sphere were reckoned to be forces that the International could overcome with the technological superiority, great reserves of manpower, and production power it had triumphed in other wars with.

The Revolt's forces however were caught off guard by the intervention of unexpected forces as the Axis lead by the Empire of the Rising Sun launched its assault. The Empire struck with blinding brutality and turned an already messy conflict into a nearly indecipherable mess of shifting frontlines and free for all battles. Now would come the greatest test of the Zephyr revolt; it's ability to hold steadfast in a world gone mad with the flames of war.

### Shark Breach

The Japanese assault on Alaska and Kamchatka was vicious and clearly well coordinated with the aid of their Totanian allies and the infernal skyborne monarchists of the Guardians of Monarchy. The flying base of Coronia was besieged by the might of Epsilon's air armada in an effort to breach the protective storm that shielded the massive warship from attack and put the Zephyr Revolt's greatest fortress to paid, while Haihead's himalayan base was threatened by the full might of the Indian army; hoping to open up another front to bring down the Soviet bear.

The battle of the Bering Sea was one of the most harrowing fought by any of the factions and would feature surprise appearances by Epsilon and the Alliance; eager to gain access to the technology of Zephyr and the Empire. But with the timely arrival of reinforcements from the rest of the Communist International and its subgroups; the Zephyr Revolt was able to hold back the tide and crush the invaders at long last with a final push made by Commander Iqniq as her forces launched their mighty counter attack, aided by the plasmarizer batteries guarding the antarctic that time and time again sent the invaders stumbling back into the sea while the firestorm barriers stymied efforts to bombard the Zephyr Revolt's bases.

With the siege of Alaska and Kamchatka and the assault on the Bering Sea bridge city repulsed, the Zephyr Revolt started its pushback. The Revolt's forces were swift, efficient and left wide swathes of the enemy's armies devastated in their wake. The technology of the Revolt's effectiveness against numerically superior forces is perhaps best demonstrated by the disastrous (for the Allies) result of the Indian siege of Mt.Everest that saw less than fifty thousand Revolters rout a vastly numerically superior force; cutting down Peacemakers, Frontier Corpsmen, and Blue Chinese troopers alike with wild abandon.

The Zephyr Revolt's ability to operate extremely far from bases of supply and with little support was also invaluable for long ranged strikes, such as the raid on London that destroyed significant parts of the British channel fleet in port and lead to an outraged Thornley demanding a manhunt for Commander Iqniq after her forces destroyed a statue of Queen Victoria. And these qualities made them invaluable for turning the tide of the war; helping the International win air superiority over what battlefields they participated in and while often setback such as at the battle of Vancouver or the disastrous defeat at Mount Erebus; the Revolt proved to be a reliable asset even as they steeled themselves as the war went on.

The enemy's

## Warriors of the Wind

### Working Vehicles

 File:IconRevolt.png | Minerfly | A means of drawing resources from more distant sources without establishing a refining outpost, the Minerfly can fly across the battlefield at high velocity to pick up ore loads while stealthed and return to base to deposit its ore with high speed and safety. Spotting it doesn't necessarily mean that one will be able to kill it however, as it can hack defences to shut them down and make a get away.

### Jetstreams

With multiple secondaries possible, the deploy and return to base secondaries no longer need be the only such secondaires. Zephyr aircraft also never need to reload and rearm due to the Revolt's technology and can slowly repair while in the air. Jetstreams are the Revolt's light fixed wing aircraft.

### Cyclones

With multiple secondaries possible, the deploy and return to base secondaries no longer need be the only such secondaires. Zephyr aircraft also never need to reload and rearm due to the Revolt's technology and can slowly repair while in the air. Cyclones are the revolt's heavy fixed wing aircraft.