Synopsis

Shatterpoint is set in a universe much like our own, only where everything went slightly more wrong after the year 2000. The timeline officially starts with the bombing of the World Trade Center, and slowly diverges from our own until it is completely it's own entity. The game is set in the year 2170, just over 150 years into the future.

Timeline Pre-Invasion

 * 11th September, 2001 - Al Queda bombs the World Trade Center, killing just under 3,000 people and removing two landmarks of the New York Skyline.
 * 7th October 7th, 2001 - George Bush declares a "War on Terror", beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan. Coalition forces quickly brush aside resistance fighters and obtain a convincing military victory, although other insurgents necessitate a continuing ground presence.
 * 20th March 20th, 2003 - After months of claims of hoarding Weapons of Mass Destruction by America and England, Iraq is invaded. Again, a ground victory is secured and Saddam Hussein is caught, tried and hung, but no WMDs are found. Again, other insurgents necessitate a continuing ground presence.
 * 2008 - Most Coalition nations start to see a rise of anger regarding the occupying forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Barack Obama is voted into power as President of the United States, partially due to his promises that he would bring the troops home.
 * 2010 - After a year of planning, Obama starts planning the removal of American troops from the Middle East when he receives a communication from an unnamed Terrorist group claiming that they have nuclear bombs in multiple American cities, and will detonate them if American troops are brought home. Attempting to buy time to either find the bombs or verify that the communication was a hoax, it is decided that troops should be kept overseas and that the threat should be kept secret.
 * 2012 - Angered American citizens vote Obama out in favour of another man claiming that he will bring the troops out of the Middle East. The message is sent again, and once again, American troops are left out in the Middle East.
 * 2014 - Against rising levels of discontent in their own nations, all other Coalition forces pull out of the Middle East over the next twelve months, leaving America in there alone. Global anger against America rises dramatically, along with a cementing of America's reputation as a bully, pushing around the smaller nations.
 * 2015 - The UN is officially disbanded, being replaced with the International Peacekeeping Alliance (IPA). America is not invited to be a member.
 * 2017 - A well-funded American ultranationalist group, fearing the rise of Communism if America is allowed to be completely cut off from the rest of the world, illegally travels to China and starts a three month long campaign of sabotage against Chinese industry. Over the course of twelve weeks, China's debt rises to ten times what it was before as the costs of repairing and finding the terrorists skyrocket.
 * 2019 - Seeing the spectacular results of the American ultranationalists, the IPA member nations disband their standing armies and begin training small, elite teams of soldiers in guerilla warfare. The first of the Global Espionage, Insurgency, Sabotage and counter Terrorism (GEIST) teams is raised in England, and is trained to the peak of human limits and equipped with the best technology money can buy.
 * 2020 - The Hideokawa Corporation, a conglomerate of the richest businessmen in Japan, band together and purchase the majority of the Japanese government, turning it to their own ends and nationalising all Japanese businesses under their control. Within twelve months, vast improvements are made in all walks of life, especially the still experimental field of cybernetics.
 * 2021 - Fearing the quick rise of the Hideokawa Corporation's dominance over everyday life, the IPA passes a resolution that drastically limits the workforce that is allowed outside of a corporation's own nation.

In a highly classified operation, GEIST-1 (reputedly) hunts down and kills Osama Bin Laden. It is claimed that his severed head was found pinned to the door of the men's toilet facilities on an American base in the Helmand province of Afghanistan with a combat knife, along with a note simply stating "I'm sorry Princess, your terrorist mastermind is in another castle".
 * 2022 - After production nearly grinds to a halt, the Hideokawa Corporation approaches China's government with a deal; They will remove China's national debt in two years if they sign a contract that essentially gives them the country. After several week's negotiation, a powerless IPA sees the first corporate takeover of a country.
 * 2023 - Hideokawa Corporation's newfound workforce speeds Cybernetic advancement beyond their wildest dreams, with many injuries and physical problems becoming things of the past almost over night as overproduction drives down costs.
 * 2024 - The first physical connection between a human and a computer is achieved by a Hideokawa lab in Tokyo. The prototype manages to download almost half the internet's data to the the human before his brain is burnt out.
 * 2025 - More limited data transferral is achieved, and the CortexNet program is initiated, genetically altering the brain to turn it into a true computer. Almost as soon as this is achieved, Microsoft, Apple and Linux all get operating systems created for it.
 * 2026 - Logo Tukinawa, a scientist working for the Hideokawa Corporation, levels a city block in tests which later produce the first viable Cold Fusion unit, producing nuclear power, only cleaner, safer and in a constantly renewing state, essentially solving the world's energy demands.
 * 2027 - In a landmark case, a man is fired by a company in Germany for taking time off for an industrial injury instead of having a cybernetic fitted. In the resultant lawsuit, the courts rule in the company's favour, citing that his contract explicitly stated that he would do everything in his power to return to work, which included being fitted with cybernetics. Sick days quickly become a memory.
 * 2028 - Most GEIST and police forces are uploaded with a specific CortexNet program that allows greater communication and targeting systems, while still being naturally part of the brain.
 * 2030 - It is discovered that the genetic changes of the CortexNet system are transimtted to children, with a 100% chance of success if both parents have one. It is theorised that the world will be almost 100% online by 2050.
 * 2032 - The first Fusion Bomb is tested by the French government, a payload the size of a tennis ball atomises an oil rig with only a slight increase in background radiation. As a sign of good faith, the schematics are shared with the rest of the IPA countries, but with unilateral limits on how many can be produced.
 * 2034 - After the first generation of CortexNet systems are priced down in preparation for the next model, almost 90% of the population of the world gets one.
 * 2035 - Max Steiner, a low-ranking British military programmer accidentally makes a code in his machine that give it sentience. The program, known as B1oN, begins to communicate with several high-ranking members of the IPA and, after a short discussion, offers it's services as a military co-ordinator. The IPA agrees and the B1oN program copies itself to several shard programs across the globe, each taking on a different identity. On B1oN's request, Max Steiner is given a Nobel Prize and is named the father of artifical intelligence.
 * 2036 - The US government commissions several Hollywood films to boost patriotism in America. These are played almost constantly, as well as broadcast for every American citizen anywhere in the world to watch.

A program is written and sent out with all new CortexNet patches that teaches children born with a CortexNet system their native language, and a set of basic skills that eliminates the need for lower education as part of a plan to improve productivity by being able to hire new workers even younger.
 * 2037 - Goldwin-Jones Pharmaceuticals creates the first fully cloned limb in London. They quickly replicate the technology and provide limb and organ cloning services to their loyal paying customers worldwide.
 * 2038 - The IPA gives Goldwin-Jones Pharmaceuticals a massive grant to explore the military applications of cloned limbs, quickly receiving such innovations as biological lungs that can breathe underwater and eyes with a natural zoom function. This new technology is coined Biological Cybernetics, or Bionetics.
 * 2039 - Using rudimentary AI based on B1oN, the first autonomous robots are created. The B1oN shards that were offered bodies unanimously declined, stating that it was safer to remain as a pure program.
 * 2041 - An object is detected by several groups, just on the far side of Pluto. The trajectory is calculated as moving straight at Earth, with estimates stating that it should make contact in 2048.
 * 2043 - Several other objects of similar shape and mass are detected coming from the same area of space. Initial estimates are changed when the first object starts slowing down.
 * 2046 - In preperation for what may be a full scale war, global production of Fusion missiles speeds up.
 * 9th June, 2050 - The first object lands in the exact centre of the United States of America, revealing itself to be a giant black pyramid. A large number of Americans, Canadians and South Americans travels to be nearer to it, while an equally large number flees to other countries.

13th June, 2050 - Just short of declaring a state of emergency, most countries of the world close their borders to stop American refugees, some even shooting boats out of the water.

15th June, 2050 - A week-long festival is held around the Pyramid, in honour of the "visitors"

23rd June, 2050 - At the climax of the festival, the sides of the Pyramid open and plays a short montage of clips from the American patriot films before it unleashes a gas on the unwitting revellers, killing most instantly. Against B1oN's advice, global response is swift and decisive - every last Fusion missile is launched at the United States of America, turning the country into a radiactive glass plane and killing billions. While the bombs succeed in stopping the gas, enough dirt is thrown into the atmosphere that the sun is blocked out, throwing the world into pitch blackness for almost six months.

14th November, 2050 - After 143 days of blackness, light finally starts managing to reach the Earth again. Due to a new mixture of gasses and dust, the sky has been permanently scarred a deep red, and the world is embroiled in a war with highly advanced alien lifeforms.

Post-Invasion
All dates after the sky is seared are based on conjecture at best. The IPA as an entity lasted almost three years against what gradually became known as the Invaders, with some individual GEIST operatives managing to last almost until the end of the campaign. Approximately a decade after the Invaders first attacked, many people fitted with cybernetics started exhibiting strange behaviour and abilities, eventually becoming known as Transhumans, several groups of which began to turn the tide against the Invaders by turning their own weapons against them. The various B1oN programs attempt communication with the survivors several times, but find it harder than anticipated after the last humans with military programs are killed.

After roughly a hundred years of open warfare, the Invaders retreated from Earth and the process of rebuilding began, but with factionalised groups of humans fighting each other over who would be in charge, and what the dominant philosophies would be. The world would remain in conflict for another two decades until some time in 2170, when two mercenaries from England found an abandoned GEIST depot with the military software uploads, as well as unwittingly unleashed the robot army known as the Steel Tide on the human survivors in Kent. After much deliberation, the military software was uploaded to as many people as possible to grant them skills to fight the robots, but succeeded only in putting almost every human under the age of 16 in a coma and therefore decimating the possible fighting force.

It is now a week after the upload took out the youngest members of the human race, and the Steel Tide is at the gates of the Factions of Kent. Brittany B1oN, the British shard of the B1oN program, has managed to reconnect with much of humanity and is directing the defence of England's Clean Zones, including doing what she can to wake up the affected humans. Whatever happens, however, the fight for survival has begun.