On his first night of safety in the Bangkok villa, Dominik couldn't sleep. The adrenaline had faded, replaced by a gnawing need to understand the rules of the board he was playing on. He sat in the dark living room, the glow of a scavenged laptop illuminating his tired face, and began to extensively research the history and geopolitical landscape of this alternate Earth.
First, and what he cared about most, was the divergence in history. This world was familiar, yet fundamentally altered.
In this reality, the Cold War hadn't ended with a quiet collapse; it had escalated into a series of devastating, localized proxy wars over dwindling resources in the late 1990s. To prevent a global nuclear holocaust, the major superpowers were forced to the negotiating table, sharing advanced military and energy technologies to stabilize the global economy.
The world was now divided into massive, hyper-militarized blocs. Countries led by Russia, China, and India, along with ASEAN, formed the Eurasian Pact, while the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany formed the Western Coalition.The resource-rich nations of the Middle East and Africa formed the Continental Union, while South America consolidated its own borders.
In 2011, these massive blocs signed the Geneva Accords, establishing the United Earth Coalition (UEC). For the first time, humanity's superpowers united their military apparatuses under a single, overarching command structure to deal with non-state threats: massive cartels, rogue terror states, and hyper-funded insurgencies.
Dominik learned that the technological development in this world was roughly twenty to thirty years ahead of his original timeline. Advanced robotics, compact heavy body armor, HUD combat integration, and bio-engineering were standard issue for elite units.
To maintain global order, the UEC established a unified military force.
The UEC forces were divided into four main branches: the Joint Special Operations Command, the Coalition Navy, the Expeditionary Marines, and the National Armies.
The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was the unit Ghost had previously served in. It was formed by merging the elite Tier One operators from various nations—the UK's SAS, France's GIGN, Germany's KSK, the US's Delta Force and DEVGRU, Russia's Alpha Group,India's Para SF, and China's Oriental Sword.
JSOC consisted of roughly 12,000 active personnel, all absolute elites. Their main task was to execute black operations, conduct surgical counter-terrorism strikes, and dismantle massive, heavily armed illegal organizations like The Syndicate in the Golden Triangle.
The Coalition Navy was the main instrument of global power projection. The "sea" was their absolute domain. The main force consisted of massive Carrier Strike Groups, boasting next-generation stealth destroyers, railgun-equipped cruisers, and nuclear submarines.
The Expeditionary Marines were equipped with heavy armor, VTOL transport aircraft like the Osprey they had seen earlier, and advanced close-air support. They were the main hammer used to crush rogue states that refused to bow to UEC regulations.
Because the UEC's control was absolute in the developed world, the lawless, ungoverned regions—like the Golden Triangle, parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and the deep Amazon—became havens for massive rebel factions and cartels. These weren't small-time street gangs; organizations like The Syndicate controlled entire provinces, possessing their own standing militias and heavy combat equipment. The Navy and Marines existed primarily to keep these rogue factions contained.
Then came the National Armies. Compared to the UEC Marines or JSOC, the standing armies of individual nations were treated like unwanted stepchildren. While the elite UEC units received the bleeding-edge tech, the regular armies—like the Thai border guards Dominik had bribed—used older, phased-out equipment. Their role had shifted entirely to domestic defense and border quarantine.
Reading through the troop deployments, a chilling realization washed over Dominik. The pieces of the puzzle Professor Quaid had mentioned clicked into place.
This zombie crisis in the Shan State was almost certainly orchestrated—or at least allowed to happen—by the UEC.
According to the open-source naval trackers Dominik found, the UEC's Pacific Fleet had a massive Carrier Strike Group positioned in the Andaman Sea, just off the coast of Myanmar and Thailand. With their VTOL transports and rapid-response Marines, they could have reached Mandalay in less than three hours to contain the outbreak and rescue civilians.
But the crisis had raged for nearly four days, and not a single UEC Marine had set foot in the Golden Triangle. They had only sent a small, covert Secret Service CAT team specifically to extract the Senator's daughter.
They had deliberately let the region burn. If there was no foul play involved, Dominik wouldn't believe it for a million dollars. The UEC had used the bio-weapon to wipe the Golden Triangle clean of cartels, rebels, and millions of inconvenient civilians without firing a single conventional shot or risking a political scandal.
"Akurva életbe..." Dominik cursed softly, rubbing his tired eyes and stretching his arms high above his head.
He had grasped the general situation. On the surface, the United Earth Coalition appeared prosperous and stable, a beacon of global security. But underneath, it was a ruthless, calculating machine willing to sacrifice entire regions to maintain control.
The world was sick. And now, he and Ghost were operating right in the middle of it.
However... Dominik couldn't afford to worry about global conspiracies right now. He had a much more immediate, terrifying problem. He only cared about how to claim his System bounty.
He had less than twenty-four hours left on his initial quest timer. If he didn't officially register his PMC and become a recognized Mercenary by tomorrow, the System's bizarre, humiliating "eunuch" penalty would take effect.
Just as panic began to set in, the System's unique, cold voice echoed directly in his mind, startling him in the dark room:
[Host has completed the Main Quest: Survive the Outbreak and Reach the Safe Zone.]