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Well, with a World War on the way, I thought it’d be useful to present the major player’s on the world’s stage.

Alliances

PATO (Pacific-Atlantic Treaty Organization)

This group began forming after Japan turned against Weisswald in 1951 and joined the Western Alliance to fight him. Soon, Indonesia, South Korea (before it was absorbed by the SU) and New Zealand also pitched in, as did Brazil, Argentinia and several other South American states, at least those which Weisswald’s Blitzkrieg attack on South America had not subsumed to his rule (and even of those, some joined via their exiled governments). Thus, the NATO was restructured into the Pacific-Atlantic Treaty Organization, a union of states founded initially for the sole purpose of defeating Weisswald, marking the turning point of the world war in 1953 – until then, Weisswald had been winning.

After his defeat on February 3rd, 1960, the PATO persisted, though it lost most of its South American members in exchange for gaining what little remained of Western Europe (including Germany). However, the Cold War it entered into against the Sovjet Union allowed it to persist to this day, and the PATO has now become synonymous with the Western World, its organs of power having accumulated enough privileges to be able to actually function as a united power block.

The President of the PATO is widely considered to be the (politically) most powerful person in the world. At the time of the main story, this office is held by Carlos di Sanchez, formerly the representative of America to the PATO Council.

The Sovjet Union

1923 was a very, very good year for the newly formed Sovjet Union, as the victorious Bolsheviks found themselves almost swamped with newly manifested, fanatical metahumans, ready to live and die for the glorious communistic state.

The advances to food production brought by Gadgeteers, as well as other metahuman powers (Red Star’s power allowed her to force grow plants without depleting the soil, allowing for three to four harvests a season) allowed the communist state to work far better than one would have expected, as there was enough food to spare – even enough for a simple worker to get some luxury out of it. By 1950, the Sovjet Union was, in terms of agriculture and food distribution, the most advanced country in the world.

Perception powers that allowed for enhanced planning, structuring and the like allowed the communist machine to work efficiently (not flawlessly, but efficiently) despite the corruption one has to expect from such a system.

Like a steamroller, the Sovjet Union spread across Eurasia, swallowing most of the Asian states, including China, North Korea (later South Korea as well), Vietnam and the Northern half of India. Ironically, it wasn’t the West – which seriously didn’t like the communist powerblock – that halted its advance, but rather Weisswald.

See, the Sovjet Union has always emphasized the need for non-metas to actually be at the top in order to provide a stable government. And, since they made very sure to brainwash their youth into being loyal – and manifestations often enhance such traits – the metahumans were mostly content with that.

Weisswald’s ideology revolved entirely around the superiority of metahumanity. Thus, the Sovjet Union was, for him, an even more personal and important enemy than the West, and he tore through their lands. Many people considered the Sovjet Union dead when Stalingrad fell in 1946, just two years after Weisswald came to power and half a year after he began his campaign against the SU. But they survived and emerged stronger than before, as a new head of the government formed – instead of one man holding all the power, the Red Council was formed, a collection of the smartest, most competent and ambitious (non-powered) men and women from all the SU.

After Weisswald’s defeat, the SU entered into a Cold War against the PATO, even though Weisswald had inflicted grievous losses to them. Over the next decades, they fought a number of proxy wars, and everything was pointing towards open warfare breaking out soon – but then Desolation-in-Light was born and began her rampage, enforcing a brittle peace broken only by proxy wars once more.

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