What’s happened to the Allies?
All is well in the Land of the Free. With the decisive defeat of the Soviets and the death of Stalin, America can get back to savouring the fruits of freedom: apple pie, baseball, and amber waves of grain. American intelligence operations, ever wary of the Russian threat since the war, has installed a puppet dictator in the U.S.S.R., General Romanov, head of the harmless World Socialist Alliance. The U.S. Department of Defense thinks little of a civil war that suddenly breaks out in Mexico — for a long time, communist factions have stirred up trouble in the northern region — and it’s considered routine when Romanov’s forces move in to quell the unrest and restore order to its WSA member country.
But strange things start happening to unsettle the complacent U.S. empire. Soon, the country’s early-warning defense system shuts down. Hurrying to diagnose the problem, the Pentagon doesn’t suspect Romanov might be the culprit until news reports begin trickling in. Reports tell of Russian troops spilling over the borders of Texas and California and establishing mysterious beacons at their gradually encroaching outposts. Civilians report cases of severe headaches and numbness, and those municipalities nearest the beacons relate that some citizens are falling into a zombie-like state of submission — there are even reports of American civilians taking up arms along with the Soviet troops, forsaking their homeland for Mother Russia.
After some deliberation and debate, The president declares war against the Russian army in Mexico. The Pentagon moves for a decisive, contained nuclear strike to destroy the central base. The red phone rings in the War Room. The secretary of war issues the final order. The button is pressed. Nothing happens.
America’s nuclear missiles sit useless in their silos. The Pentagon’s central defense computer is dead. By now, intelligence sources confirm the worst suspicions: Romanov is orchestrating a strike against the U.S. using the most mysterious and terrifying technology to date: psychically-enhanced troops whose minds are as deadly as their AK-47s. Further reports verge on the fantastic: giant squids have attacked key U.S. battle-cruisers off the California coast; zombie-like cows, laden with high-tech explosive devices, are converging en masse on Alamo Air Force Base in Texas.
Rallying its Army and Air Force — as well as a few technological marvels of its own, the U.S. prepares to fight a war that will determine the fate of the country: stars and stripes forever, or the hammer and sickle flying wickedly triumphant over U.S. soil?
Subfactions: America (Airborne), Great Britain (Sniper), France (Grand Cannon), Germany (Tank Destroyer), Korea (Black Eagle)
What’s happened to the Mighty Reds?
The Soviets are defeated. Stalin is dead, and the motherland of Russia now sits in subdued silence, stripped of its glory. General Romanov, current leader of the Russian people, has been hand-picked by American intelligence operations as the perfect puppet dictator, a mere pawn to U.S. interests.
Or so he appears to be.
In the press, he’s portrayed as the consummate politician, earning the love his people and the respect of the west as a leader of the new World Socialist Alliance, an innocuous organization that gives financial aid to developing countries. The U.S.-friendly World Socialist Alliance family includes key Latin American countries as well as Mexico.
But a fire burns within General Romanov: a thirst for vengeance, an outrage at seeing his homeland crushed by the decadent empire of the west. He can’t forget the war; it’s branded on his childhood memories – the air strikes, the infantry trotting through the snowy streets, the factories exploding in orange blossoms of terrible flame. The memories won’t die, and neither will the hatred. As he grew up, a descendant of the old czarist aristocracy he has thought of little else but revenge. For years he’s nurtured maniacal dreams of rebuilding the Soviet superpower. Part czarist, part communist, all madman, Romanov plots in secret to strike back at the United States once and for all.
He has allies; his World Socialist Alliance is, in fact, a puppet organization that cloaks a more ominous agenda: the development of a global network of communist allies who are united in their cause of bringing America to its knees. In addition to the network, he also has technology. Romanov has been secretly building an army trained in the art of mind control. Building upon technology explored by the Stalin regime, Romanov has perfected the art of psychically enhanced warfare. His troops are a force in their own right. But, powered by psychic beacons, their thoughts are their most formidable weapons.
When civil war breaks out in Mexico, Romanov’s army moves in to protect WSA interests, as expected. But it’s a ruse, a front of Romanov’s to set up his army of psychically enhanced war machines. Knocking out American early-warning defense systems and the country’s nuclear arsenal by using mind control, Romanov orchestrates a swift U.S. invasion. Key cities fall by the hour as Romanov’s psychic strike force sets up its mind-control beacons farther and farther into U.S. soil.
Romanov doesn’t want to destroy the U.S. — no, his thirst for vengeance is tempered by cunning: he wants nothing less than full control of the country’s infrastructure, defense and resources. The U.S. will pay for its destruction of the U.S.S.R. by becoming its first and largest colony.
Subfactions: Russia (Tesla Tank), Cuba (Terrorist), Iraq (Desolator), Libya (Demolition Truck)