Ashen Rains (Red Alert 3 Paradox)

Almost twenty-two centuries have passed since Qin Shi Huang unified the Warring States, becoming the first Emperor of China. His legacy is ash now. One of the world's oldest, most enduring civilizations, millennia of culture and history. Hundreds of millions of lives. All of it, wiped out in a single night. The night where a thousand new suns blossomed, briefly. It is the butcher's bill. The price of peace, the capstone to most destructive war in all of mankind's history.

The rest of the world largely ignores this unprecedented calamity. They are gripped in the throes of a different war--the so-called Third World War. The great powers of the world are locked in a death struggle--the coalition of powers that form the Allied Nations. The Soviet Union and their allies of the Warsaw Pact. The Empire of the Rising Sun and its client states of the Pacific Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Others skulk in the shadows, watching quietly. In Hong Kong and Macau, the megacorporations all but rule openly, the elected governments little more than puppets dancing to their tune. There are the myths and urban legends of men wielding impossible weapons from bygone ages--yet somehow these never turn out to be anything more than rumour. From Mongolia come the strangest stories of all. Of strange things like men and things that are not like men, who are only ever seen in the distance and vanish as quickly as they appear.

But for the survivors of the atomic bombs, those few millions who were not incinerated by nuclear fire, who weathered the worst of the fallout, who have staved off starvation and survived their fellow men, the rest of the world might as well not exist. For decades there was only the War. Now, there is only the Wasteland. Beneath the ash-choked sky, there is little left. Black rains and toxic ash have poisoned the land. The life giving waters of the Yangtze and the Yellow River now only cause sickness and death. Even the ocean has turned its back on the Middle Kingdom; some fish still swim in the coastal waters, but their numbers dwindle by the day.

Of the cities, there are none left; from Urumqi in the east, to Beijing in the north, to Guangzhou in the south; nothing remains of any of them, except charred, radiation scarred ruins. Even so, life finds a way.

Only a few weeks have passed since the Night of a Thousand Suns, but already new kingdoms are beginning to rise from the ashes. Most of them can claim no more than a few hundred people as subjects, petty fiefdoms that extend no further than the walls of their bunker, but they exist nevertheless. Other than the scavenger-kingdoms there are the bandits, who never linger in one place for long, and use the strength of their vehicles to take from the weak. There are those who remain loyal to dead governments, though they are few and grow smaller by the day.

China is fractured, shattered into countless bunker-fiefs and roving warbands, where once there was a single nation. But this need not remain the case. Many relics from the war still survive, and in the right hands their potential is vast. With the right leadership, perhaps a new empire could rise from the ashes of the old...

---

You are a survivor. One of the few fortunate--or unfortunate--enough to survive the destruction wrought by the atomic bombs and their immediate aftermath. Choose one.

[ ] The Scientist
"It's too late to close Pandora's Box."
It was the wonder material, Jade, that finally let the participants of the Chinese Civil War crack the secrets of atomic fission. You are perhaps the world's foremost expert on Jade; as far as you can tell, all of your colleagues are dead, leaving you as the one person who understands the green substance's potential--and dangers--better than anyone else. And that means you carry a heavy burden; for you cannot deny the devastation your work has wrought.

[ ] The Soldier
"The war is over, but the fighting continues."
You fought, bled, and struggled for your country. Just another soldier expected to sacrifice everything in the name of victory. And all for this. For the war to end in the worst of all outcomes. Still, you will not give up. You refuse to follow the footsteps of so many of your brothers-in-arms, to give into depression and despair. You persevere, even as every day the world reminds you that yours is a futile struggle. You will not fail, for there are others who depend on you. You cannot.

[ ] The Survivor
"Not until you're in the depths of hell."
Mercy and kindness have no place in your heart. Those are luxuries afforded to those not struggling to survive in a literal hellscape, those who have not lost everyone and everything they ever cared about, those who have not known the sting of betrayal from someone they trusted. You have seen the worst of mankind come to the fore, and you have hardened your heart in response. You will survive, and you will have your revenge.

[ ] The Experiment
"Everything and anything for the mission."
You are a living weapon, a product of one of the many horrific experiments conducted throughout the war. An unparalleled killer, your name whispered in tones of fearful reverence. Maybe you were a person, once. It matters not. For you, the mission was everything; service to the state was everything. What does one like you do when the state you served is dead? Where will you go, without anyone to direct you?

[ ] The Veteran
"The only true peace lies in oblivion."
The Civil War saw medical technology developed to heights never seen before or since. Cloning, cybernetics, reanimation--there was no shortage of bodies during the last years of the war, in spite of the endless demand. More valuable, and far harder to replace were minds. It was why you were not allowed to rest. Many times you met your end on the battlefield. Every time they brought you back, and you lost another little piece of yourself in the process. The bombs have fallen, but you live yet...

(What you choose here will heavily influence your starting situation, and also affect to some extent what kind of quest you're going to play. If you want to try to rebuild things, obviously the Scientist is going to be a better fit than the Veteran. Vice versa if you're more interested in roaming the wasteland, meeting interesting people, and then shooting them in the face.)

Are you...

[ ] Male
[ ] Female

Reserved index post that I probably won't use

Reserved.