Part 7: Kaidan Alenko.

Author’s Note: Other than telling you what happened between 2050 to 2075, this chapter is mainly about the OC who’ll be the main character of the next saga: Aftermath. This chapter will also have info about the Spectre, and what they are about and why whilst they have better technology, the rest of the world don’t. So I hope you like it.

(Pre-War Saga - Part 7!)

Kaidan Alenko.

21st of June 2075:

It has been over twenty years since the incident in Jericho, where Harry tried to escape the secret underground facility, but failed. But it did do a few things, first it let people living on the surface to find out about the facility, and so forcing the facility to close down and move. No one was able to find out much about the facility, as all the information was erased, and all the non important experiments were terminated and the rest was moved elsewhere.

So whilst searching the place, the citizens of Jericho found dead bodies and destroyed equipment that they didn’t know how to fix as they were out of their knowledge how to fix them. And seeing that they couldn’t fix the equipment, they couldn’t use the place, so after giving the dead a proper burial, they blocked the entrances until they knew how to fix the equipment. But for the rest of the years, life in Jericho returned more or less back to normal.

The second thing that happened during the years, was that the Wizarding World was exposed. There was two reasons this happened, the first was that when the British learnt about Harry Potter still being alive, and remembered what he had done, they tried to find him and return him to England at any cost so he could pay what he done. The other main reason they were discovered was because the Wizarding World got in a fight with the L’Cies, as there were those who had enough people knowing about magic and tried to do something about it.

The Wizarding World fought against the L’Cies and was planning to use a powerful ritual to make people forget about magic, a ritual that was used years ago to make them forget in the dark ages. But what the Wizards and Witches didn’t realize was that the L’Cies were more powerful than them. So in the end, whilst they were able to defeat a few of them, in the end all they did was to expose the Wizarding World instead of hiding themselves.

Over the years, most the Purebloods and the Half-Bloods that were raised by Pureblood, found it hard to adjust, and they slowly died out. But for the Purebloods that were able to adjust, even though they kept to themselves most of the time, were able to work with the Muggle World from time to time. As for Muggleborns and Half-Bloods raised within the Muggle World, they had an easy time of fitting in and was happier for it, as they didn’t have to hide who they were because of the old laws.

Now for the United States though, in 2051, the first public sign of problems was with the resources, as when they had to protect their business interests and their oil supply, the United States began to exert increasing pressure on Mexico, citing the political instability and pollution stemming from Mexico as a threat to the United States. There were various economic sanctions served to destabilize Mexico, and the United States military had to enter Mexico to keep the oil refineries running and making sure oil and fuel continue to make their way north across the border without much trouble, but it was all at Mexico’s expense though.

It wasn’t until a year later when people found out how bad it was, when a television documentary revealed the withered husk of the Texas oil fields, which showed shortage of oil within the American households and reveals how deep the energy and resource crisis really ran. Some people blamed it on the moonbase project, and they need to mine for Helium 3. What people didn’t realize was how they needed Helium 3, and it was mainly found on the moon. But then again, when faced with a crisis where energy and resources was running low, they’ll put blame on anything - in which case they were partly right.

During 2052 though, whilst there was a last manned mission to the Moon, which the government hoped would help the problem with the low resources that they had. However it was little too late, as in April of that year, the Resource Wars begin. The reason for this was because many of the smaller nations went bankrupt, and Europe, dependent on oil imports from the Middle East, responds to the Middle East’s rising oil prices with military force. Which started the long drawn-out war between the European Commonwealth and the Middle East.

As the U.S. were trying to find more oil, they found that the Chinese geologists and petroleum exploration engineers were working on tapping the last remaining oil fields deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, but these efforts were sabotaged by American spies. This paved the way for the U.S. energy company Poseidon Oil to claim the resource and erect an oil rig of their own.

However though, because of the war during the months of May through July: The United Nations, who were already suffering, finally began to collapse. In a series of heated debates about the war, many of the nations withdrew from the organization as the U.N. tries to keep the peace. Sadly on the 26th of July of that year, the United Nations disbanded.

It didn’t help with the fact that in the early stages of the war, a new socially transmitted plague, simply called New Plague, appeared. Because of this, to keep others from catching this plague, the United States closes its borders so no one can come in or out of the states, and the first-ever national quarantine is declared. This made things difficult with trading with other counties, as many feared they might catch the New Plague and so made getting resources harder. But there were a few brave souls were willing to trade with the United States, as long as they didn’t have to go near to the dock workers when unloading their stock.

Each year tens of thousand of people died, so the West Tek Research Facility started working on a cure for the New Plague. Despite their efforts, they were unable to find the cure and the plague continued to spread into the 2060s, fueling national paranoia. At the time, the facility reached this conclusion, many people began suspecting that the plague was engineered by the government to help save on resources, and riots soon began because of it.

Because of this, the government used the Plague as an excuse to register civilians, claiming a symptom of the plague was ‘socialist thoughts’ and advocating isolation: people should stay indoors, read books and avoid ‘Ice cream socials.’ Furthermore, people were told that if they believed they were infected, they were to contact a disease control center, such as the disaster relief outpost in Point Lookout, for isolation immediately. Whilst a few believed this rubbish, and knew that it was the government’s way of trying to control them in some way, there were a lot who were sheep who believe these words and followed their advice. However, the ones who didn’t chose to hold protests against the government for imposing their will upon them.

By the 2070’s, whilst the New Plague was still about, for some reason it slowly died down and just killing a few thousand people a year, depending where they lived. And because of this, the borders were still up around the U.S. and so they needed to clear a Health Check before leaving.

In January of 2054 there was a limited nuclear exchange in the Middle East, that raised some fears throughout the world. And so because of this, the war and the plague, the United States finally decided to officially sets Project Safehouse in motion. The project, financed by junk bonds, is designed to create shelters, called Vaults, for the populace in the event of a nuclear war or or should the plague become worse. And so construction began late in 2054 and proceeds rapidly due to advances in construction technology. Some Construction L’Cies, as people now called them, helped with creating some of these Vaults.

The war between European and Middle Eastern lasted until 2060, when the oil fields in the Middle East runs dry. The reasons behind the war, was soon forgotten as both sides are reduced almost to ruin. The European Commonwealth dissolves into quarreling nation states, fighting over the remaining resources.

During that time, Isla Negra Holdings began to take control of Point Lookout, Maryland as the New Plague devastates the region. The Anchorage Front Line is established, as the United States increases its military presence in Alaska to protect its last few oil resources that they had. Although the Anchorage Front Line caused tensions between the United States and Canada, as the United States attempts to pressure Canada into allowing American military units to guard the Alaskan pipeline.

But there was some big news in the science community, about the first artificial intelligence being born. Whilst it was quickly halted because of its limited memory constraints, but the discovery paved the way for future A.I. research in laboratories throughout the United States.

Now in the 2060s, the traffic on the streets all over of the world slowly stopped moving, as fuel had become too precious to waste on automobiles, so alternatives was finally explored. The research that was done over the years for electric and fusion cars finally came to light and begun to be built, but factories could only make limited amounts while conserving fuel. And as time passed, U.S. economy teeters on bankruptcy, and so the pressure for alternative power such as fusion power increased.

Over the next few years, the Resource Wars was slowly being forgotten by most people other than those who were in it. Thanks to the help of the Construction L’Cies, the construction of most of the vaults that were being built at the time were slowly being completed, and so the next lot could be started. Because of the limited locations, cost and resources, they could only do so many. So far they had done around a hundred or so, and knew they could only do another hundred or two. The plan for thirteen of them were that they would be the main vault for the area, and when it was safe to do so, would be the key to rebuilding the world should the worse happen and it ended.

With the fear or another war in the near future, and the New Plague becoming worse once again, drills begin in the cities that had completed Vaults. However though, with the increasing frequency of the drills, instead of the effect of good and getting ready, it had the opposite effect the ‘the boy who cried wolf’ effect, and the turnouts for drills trickle off as the years go on.

Also in these years, Robert House, the founder of RobCo Industries, concludes that atomic war would devastate the Earth within fifteen years after every projection he ran deemed it a mathematical certainty, but everyone thought he was mad. There were rumours that House was planning to build a wall around New Vegas, and some high powered laser cannons, but as of yet no one seen such things being build. Although he was doing some remodelling around his hotel and casino, Lucky 38, no cannons as anyone could see, but the frame work, so that if he was right and the area was nuked, the place would still be standing.

In 2065, due to enormous demands for electricity from over seventeen million population, a nuclear reactor in New York City goes supercritical, almost causing a meltdown. Because of this near meltdown, the government brings into effect power rationing to all over the U.S, which made many people unhappy about it, as they didn’t like to limit their power. There were a few people who pay heavy fines for over using their rations. The term “Hot Summer” is used to refer to this incident.

Thankful with the discovery of the Wizarding World, there was some breathing room for the resources, not much of one but some breathing room nonetheless. As they were able to mine some of their metal mines, along with a few other mines that was helpful to their needs. But the problem was that there was a limited amount of resources to be used in the Wizarding World as well, but what they were able to get, helped a lot.

In the same year, the increasing need for mobility in the United States Increasing need for mobility in the United States mechanized cavalry leads the military to focus the efforts on creating a man-based tank - essentially, a two-legged walking armoured unit: Power Armour. Sure they had the exoskeleton that was very popular, in many areas, but they were limited when it came to armour and the fame work. So the military wanted to design something better when it come to the new suits. By the the 2067, after some research from the Big MT, several prototypes were developed, but many of them though proved to be unworkable in the field. These prototypes pave the way for future advances in military, the new Magitek (a term for using magic and tech together, ) construction and fusion technology.

In 2066 though, the Resource Wars restarted. It all started in Spring, when the oil resources had dried up all across the globe, and China’s fossil fuel dependency causes an energy crisis in the nation. In Summer, adding further insult to the Sino-American relations, the first crude fusion cell is unveiled, one of the results of the power armour project. Devices designed for the fusion cell begin to be manufactured. Incorporating fusion power into the general U.S. infrastructure begins, but the process is too slow to supply power to the regions that need it. There were also talks about a Magitek item Arcane Core or ArCore for short, alternative power source, which would be the key part to other Magitek items.

Than in Winter of that year, China, incensed by the United States’ takeover of the Alaskan Pipeline fourteen years earlier, invades Alaska. The Anchorage Front Line becomes a true battleground. The problem for the United States, was getting there to defend their land. As they couldn’t travel across the sea, as they would be open to attacks, and there was the fear of China attacking them with their submarines. So the only safe way was sending troops through Canada, which was a bit of a problem, as with their past history neither really trusted the other. So it was no surprise that tension between the United States and Canada were rising, as Canada is reluctant to allow American troops onto Canadian soil or to allow American planes to fly over Canadian airspace.

Now over the next year, the first suit of T-45d Power Armour was deployed in Alaska, to help to retake Alaska from the Chinese. Whilst it lacked good mobility, the Power Armour was incredibly effective against Chinese tanks and infantry. Its ability to carry heavy ordnance, became key in various localized conflicts, and it had the power to destroy entire towns without endangering the wearer. They even create an anti-tank and air Power Armour, which stands twelve feet tall, had two high-calibre three-barrelled rotary guns mounted on its forearms, and two rocket launchers mounted on the unit’s shoulders.

Because of this, China rushes to try and create their own version of Power Armour, but seeing that they were many years behind the United States, when they created their own version, they kept them in their homeland. As they knew that their Power Armour would be no use against the U.S. Power Armour. So other than their own Power Armour, they researched other things to fight against the U.S.

Over the following years, the U.S. military presence in Canada and its increasing consumption of resources for the war effort, started to take its toll on the country. Vast stretches of timberland was destroyed, and other resources in Canada was stretched to the breaking point. Many Americans refer to Canada as Little America, and any protests that the Canadian had, went unheard.

Because of this, a growing number of protests and riots started to happen in several of the Canadian cities. In retaliation for this, and in the hopes to end the war, a group of fanatical citizens attempt to break in and sabotage the Alaskan pipeline. Because of this action, this give the U.S an excuse to finalize its annexation of Canada, which they had already thought about a few years back.

During this time, the Chinese unable to create a powerful Power Armour of their own, researched and created a stealth armour, known as Hei Gui Stealth Armour. Took a few months for the United States to find out about the Hei Gui Stealth Armour, but once they found about it, and got their hands on a suit, they give it to RobCo to look at it. Over time a Robert Mayflower, whilst they couldn’t create their own stealth armour, they created a personal stealth device worn on one’s wrist called a Stealth Boy. It generates a modulating field that transmits the reflected light from one side of an object to the other making the bearer almost invisible to the untrained eye, the device allowed a person to become almost invisible for a few hours.

However though using the Stealth Boy had some side-effects, prolonged, repeated usage of Stealth Boys have been found to have unpleasant mental side-effects, causing anxiety, paranoia, wild mood swings, and even schizophrenia and dementia. Although these effects take a long time to manifest, depending on the person, it was policy to make sure that soldiers don’t use them too often unless they had to.

As China becomes increasingly aggressive with their use of biological weapons, the United States government felt that a countermeasure was needed. So they hired West-Tek to research the Pan-Immunity Virion Project (PVP, ) to find cures to any of the biological attacks.

In 2074, contrary to their claims of seeking only to retake Alaska from the Reds, the American Government sent Power Armour units, infantry and mechanized divisions are deployed to China, in the hopes that doing this they could gain some kind of leverage and stop the war. But unfortunately though, they become bogged down on the mainland, putting a further drain on American resources and supply lines.

And in June of that year, negotiations concerning oil between the U.S. and other world powers comes to a dramatic end. No one is really sure what happened, as it was a closed session, but after a much heated debate, the President of the U.S. stormed out of the meeting. Later on TV, he issued a statement declaring that the last known supply of oil in the world, would be used exclusively by the U.S. and that the U.S. would not sell or trade any oil to outside parties, as they needed it more.

Seeing how morales were running in the country, the government had the Construction L’Cies to help updating the main cities and town to try and raise the morale of its people. As the Construction L’Cies were able to create new things out of the old resources, they wouldn’t need much to create a better future for the country and help raise morale.

It is now 21st of June 2075, where our chapter finally start and we can see the OC that we’ll see in the next saga of this story. This character is Kaidan Alenko Jr, Kaidan is thirty-five year old, with dark brown hair and brown eyes, he had a few scars across his face. Kaidan’s parents were Kaidan Alenko Sr. and Ashley Alenko nee Williams, both used to be in the military, Kaidan was a Lieutenant Colonel whilst Ashley was a Staff Sergeant Combat Medic. So with his parents and grandparents were in the military, when it was his time to join the military, he was more than happy to do so.

Now Kaidan had no brothers or sisters, as before he was born, his father was killed when on his tour with his squad. And after his death, his mother didn’t date that often as she couldn’t find anyone that she liked that she liked his father. And those that she did find she liked, she wouldn’t be allowed to have another child with them. Because of the low resources in the world, there was a law stating that parents could only have two children per family. And most people that Ashley dated, already had two children and so she couldn’t have more with them.

At first, people didn’t like the idea, and at the start many were against the idea, even if it was to save on resources, they didn’t like the idea of being told how many children they could or could not have. Some people tried to fight against it, but as soon as people after people being sent to prison for fighting against this, or having more than two children, they knew it was pointless to fight against it and went with the flow. The fighting about the law slowed, and after a few years, the fighting finally ceased.

Kaidan and his parents were from Kansas, Texas Commonwealth. The Texas Commonwealth was the main site for oil mining, it had the most most oil rigs than anywhere else, before it became a withered husk that it became in 2050’s, as people used the oil up. Whilst the oil didn’t fully dry up until the 2050’s, it started to do so many years before, which the governors of Texas tried to hide how bad it really was.

Kaidan had a really hard life, at first it wasn’t too bad, but slowly as the oil started to dry up things got hard, cost of living in the once proper Commonwealth, became harsh. That didn’t mean Kaidan and his mum had an easy life, they had to scrape and save, and would have go without food once in a while. More often than not, you would have to do whatever it took to live, stealing became some of a norm to get by, and women who didn’t have husbands or a decent job, would have to sell their own bodies to get money to look after themselves and their children if they had any.

Lucky for Kaidan’s mum, seeing that she was a Combat Medic, after some basic training, she became a doctor in the local hospital in Kansas. That didn’t mean Kaidan and his mum had an easy life, they had to scrape and save, and would have go without food once in a while. Kaidan even went and steal things to make things easier for him and his mum. No life wasn’t easy at all for them, Kaidan’s mum at one point thought about selling her body to get some money so that her son got what he needed, namely food and drink. But before Ashley could go through with it, when Kaidan was twelve year old, and when news came out that Texas ran out of oil, she was one of the first lot of people who died from the New Plague that appeared that year.

So with Kaidan being an orphan, his life became even harder, as he went to a government’s orphanage. Because of the low resources all around the world, the orphanage wasn’t all that good, and he got into fights a lot more within and out of the orphanage. Not only that, but he also had to steal more often to get by, mainly food and drink, and sometimes for clothes.

But at the age of seventeen, instead of continuing with High School, because of the Resource Wars, Kaidan was enrolled into the military. Which he was happy about, as he would be following his parents, and have a better life. And for the next twelve years, Kaidan learnt to control his anger and get into less fights, and he had a roof over his head and three square meals a day unless they were on a mission or under attack. His last mission for the military, was to his shock an outer base mission.

It would seem unknown to many on Earth, the mining base on the moon was being attacked. No one knew about this as they didn’t want to start a panic, as they didn’t want people to know that Helium 3, what was used to create Power Armour, was at risk. The attack was from the Reds and their allies, they had hoped that destroying the base, they could the United States using the Power Armour and so help them to win the war. But that didn’t happen, as the Americans stopped the attack but somehow the public found out about the attack on the moon.

Now after the mission on the moon, Kaidan decided he had enough, and wanted a more peaceful life, where he could get married and have kids of his own. Once he left the military, he joined the firefighters and started a new life in the Eastern Commonwealth, New York to be more precise. That only lasted until last year, as when he was on call, his team was called out for a warehouse fire. But as they were putting the fire out, they had to go in as someone was still inside. So it was Kaidan who went in to try and save the person, while the others were dealing with the fire.

Now normally, a firefighter would use a fighter exoskeleton when they go inside a burning building, but thanks to cut backs from the government, their department had limited amount and they were already being used. So when he got in the warehouse, he slowly made his way to the office where the shouts were coming from - the office was on the second floor of the place. But as he was climbing the stairs to help them though, everything went to hell fast. As the last thing he remembered seeing was the stairs collapsing, along with office, before he blacked out.

The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital, with a missing left arm. He found out that as the building collapsed, the debris fell all on top of him, trapping his arm. Because of the fire, and how bad the arm was trapped, they had to cut his arm off or he would have died. As for people in the office, they died as soon as the office collapsed, and there was nothing they could do about it.

So for the past year, Kaidan was recovering and out of work, but because he was injured in the line of work, he got some help. Not much help because of the low resources, but some help either way. Kaidan knew that he would have to find some work, or he would return to a life of stealing, but with a missing arm, finding work would be very hard as not many people want a one armed person.

However though, a few months ago he got a letter from a company called Apotheosis, offering him a job as a security personnel, because of his background in the military. Apotheosis was a company that thought that through technology, they could become higher beings better than the L’Cies someday. They design, create and install high-tech implants and artificial limbs for people. But the problem was that only the rich could afford them, which is why he couldn’t get one, as he didn’t have the money to get one. But from the letter he got, should he get the job, they would offer him an artificial arm for free, as long as he worked for them for the minimum of six years. Which at this point, if he wanted, he could leave the company if he wanted.

At the mere thought of getting a free artificial arm, was enough for Kaidan to accept the job interview. He knew it was highly unlikely for him to get the job, but as they say, if you don’t try, you don’t get. But he was also worried that should he get the job, what would he need to do, as they would have one over him once they give him the new arm. As if he backed out if he didn’t agree with their ways, they could force him to pay them back and they would ruin him big time, to the point there would be no coming back from. After some thought though, Kaidan decided to wait and see, as he might not even get the job, and all the worry would be for nothing.

So here he was on the train to Washington where Apotheosis was based, the train he was on was a new model, it had two floors instead of one. This was for so there’s more room on the train, but also mainly because of the Wizarding World being discovered all those years ago, as some of the people/magical beings, were sometimes bigger than the human. Although he was within his teens when the Wizarding World was discovered, he was still shocked today as he amazed at it all. Dragons, centaurs, goblins, gargoyle, were just some of the things that they now sure now days, although gargoyles only seen rarely doing the night and dragons were kept away from the public areas. Goblins and centaurs though, you see them often, as they had some important jobs like banks and training.

Goblins now helped with banking, which slightly helped with the money problems that the country was having, but not by much. They also trained people in blacksmithing, as with low resources, all of the armed new forces needed new weapons, like swords and bows and such so that bullets are needed less. Goblins also helped with showing people how to reuse some of the old resources and create new ones.

Now that they were using new weapons, people needed training, and surprisingly centaurs were the ones who you would need to go to. Even though they were half horse, half man, they were great at training people. If the myths were right, they descendants trained the heroes of the past, the likes of Hercules, so they would know how to train people.

So it was no surprise to see centaurs and goblins often.

After a few hours on the train, and a taxi to Apotheosis, he was standing a huge building, with the name of Apotheosis above the front doors. Taking a few seconds to take in the view of the place, Kaidan entered the building where he saw hundreds and hundreds of people either waiting around on at the reception desk signing in. After signing in, he waited with the others there.

Looking around, he saw a young man who was about six foot tall, pale skin, a few scars on his face, black hair with a few grey hairs along the side, something someone as young as him shouldn’t have. Looking at him, Kaidan knew this person was also in the war, the look in his eyes, how he looked around for decent exits should the worse happen, and the way he was standing. It was the same way that Kaidan was acting, but he was lucky enough that his hair wasn’t greying. He was standing next to a young lady with shoulder length light brown hair, blue eyes that shined, fair skin, slim body, and a soft smile to compliment it all. From what he could tell, she didn’t spend a day in the forces at all, so wondering why she was there.