Update 0: Winter 1900
Summer is waning. There had been a time of prosperity in Europe. The slight inflation had been beneficial to businesses and economies everywhere. The people were happy; the revolutions of 1848, forgotten. When the economy is good, people are satisfied.
But not anymore. Winter has fallen, and with it, the end of an era. In a frenzy, U.S. investors decided to withdraw their foreign capital in search of better stock market options at home. The United States, which had slowly become the leading creditor nation in the world, suddenly and inexplicably withdrew from international politics. The President disappeared, along with the branches of government. It was anarchy. The U.S. immediately closed off all entry into the country. The world was in a state of darkness when it came to American affairs.
Some say it was a terrorist attack. Others will insist that it was UFOs that came and attacked. In any case, the heavy borrowing and reliance on American investment contributed to the inherent instability of European economies, and so when the money disappeared, an economic downturn followed.
In the midst of all this, seven central countries have seen this not as a time for crisis and panic, necessarily, but as a time of opportunity. The people needed a war to take their minds of the sharp depression, to forget that the "invisible hand" by which the business cycle had died. And as they eyed each other and smaller countries collapsed entirely, the world is pitted on the brink of war. For this war is not going to be like the others. The unpredictability of the economic market will be echoed in the tangled web of diplomatic alliances . Every move will be...
A Stab in the Dark.
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