BATTLESUIT: A suit of myomer-assisted strength-enhancing armor used to protect and augment the capabilities of infantry on the modern battlefield. A number of different types, styles and refinements have been developed. Battlesuited or “Armored” infantry are the primary infantry forces in modern warfare: unarmored infantry are deployed only by nonaligned and Disrecognized nations, which lack the industrial and technological capacity to produce them and to train their wearers.
CONASUR (South American Coalition) [SPANISH: Coalición de Naciones Suramericanas; ALSO: Coalition of the Southern Cone]: A superstate encompassing all of South America, plus Panama, with the exception of French Guyana (which is an overseas department of the French People’s Federative Socialist Republic). CONASUR is the largest of the five primary neutral nations making up the “Nonaligned Movement,” refusing to become involved in the burgeoning political conflict between the FSR and the UNA. CONASUR is an economic and military power in its own right and sends observers to both the UNA and the FSR to ensure that South American interests are not infringed upon. CONASUR is a nuclear power.
CONGOLESE DISRECOGNIZED ZONE: One of five African DRZ’s, comprising the former territoties French Equatorial Africa, Kamerun, and the Belgian Congo. These designations were rendered nugatory by the collapse of France, Germany and Belgium in the Scarlet Revolution, plunging the region into chaos and instigating the UNA and FSR interventions in the region. Both regions have long legacies of colonial abuses that have caused their inhabitants to be largely hostile to the foreign interventions.
DISRECOGNIZED ZONE [ALSO: DRZ]: A UNA designation for an area of political instability within which no discernible legitimate national governments can be found to negotiate with. DRZ’s frequently are claimed by the FSR as one or more independent (usually socialist) countries, which designations the UNA refuses to recognize; the UNA considers disrecognized territory to fall under the United Nations mandate.
FSR (Federative Socialist Republic) [ALSO: Republic, the Republic; dem.: Republican]: A nominally federal constitutional socialist state encompassing Russia, China and their neighbors, from the Ukraine to the Bering Strait, and south to Malaysia. The member states are theoretically voluntary members but they are effectively satellites of the Russo-Chinese industrial complex. Western Europe has also been incorporated into the FSR as “allies,” held in place by Republican military force and political coercion. The FSR is a nuclear power.
HOWLER [mil. jargon]: A SOMUA HS-49f Wing-In Ground Effect armored combat hovercraft. Originally designed in France, production was moved to Quebec when the French Sixth Republic went into exile there following the Scarlet Revolution.
KATANGA (Katangan Republic): A quasi-political entity in the southern part of the Congolese Disrecognized Zone, currently seeking international recognition as an independent nation-state. The cause of Katangan independence is supported by both UNITA and the FSR, and opposed by the UNA, which views the region as geopolitically vital to its ongoing military intervention in Bechuanaland. The UNA has deployed elements of 6-Commando to the area to ensure that it does not form a national government which would draw it into the Republican sphere.
ODESSA COMPACT: The formal defense agreement between the Federative Socialist Republic and its allies, signed shortly after the conclusion of the First Indochina War in 1947. The agreement binds the satellite nations to the FSR in a pact of collective security. According to additions to the treaty made in 1982 and 1985, only the FSR is permitted to possess or research atomic weapons – in 1986, the Austro-Hungarian Federative People’s Democratic Republic voluntarily disarmed its 700 atomic weapons under these provisions, under FSR supervision.
RUMBLER [mil. jargon]: Allied slang term for an Autonomous Armored Vehicle, any of a variety of combat and non-combat military vehicles with onboard artifical intelligence computers and no human crews, but typically confined narrowly to the Bravo, Charlie, Echo, Foxtrot, and Victor-class AAV’s, which are all classified as superheavy tanks. Rumblers were developed by the UNA in response to the loss of the European continent in the Scarlet Revolution, depriving the Alliance of a major source of manpower and industrial production. Rumblers were designed to support smaller and more mobile UNA forces in combatting FSR forces in brushfire wars, in order to maintain force superiority without deploying additional human resources, especially in Africa and Southeast Asia. Rumblers are manufactured in the United States and Canada by O.V. Consortium and Nordyne Defense Dynamics, respectively. The Charlie, Echo and Foxtrot classes are O.V.C. designs; Bravo and Victor-classes are produced by Nordyne, which also originated the Rumbler design type. These two companies dominate the arms industry in the UNA. Rumors circulate about the possibility of a Republican Rumbler design, but the UNA does not believe that the Republic has access to sufficiently advanced computer technology to make this possible.
SCARLET REVOLUTION: A series of popular uprisings in the mid-1970’s coinciding with widespread political subversion that caused the majority of Western Europe to fall into the FSR sphere. Certain significantly pro-Western areas came under direct FSR military occupation, primarily Germany, France and Great Britain.
SCOOPER [mil. jargon]: A small, disposable automated aircraft with particle detectors used for air sampling to determine the presence of nuclear materials and certain biological and chemical agents.
UNA (United Nations Alliance) [ALSO: U.N., the United Nations, Alliance, the Alliance; dem.: Alliance/Allied]: An alliance of thirty-four nations of North and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa and Australasia. The current membership is not limited to democratic nations (Japan is an empire; Honduras, Cuba and Togo are single-party states), but democratic reform has been made a requirement for new members, leading to accusations of hypocrisy and cultural hegemony against the Alliance’s founder-members. The primary governing body is the General Assembly, but military policy is the responsibility of the Security Council, composed of permanent members Canada, Mexico, the United States, Australia and Cuba, with an additional six rotating members. The UNA has positioned itself in opposition of the Federative Socialist Republic, and the two blocs are currently in a state of undeclared war. The UNA does not possess nuclear weapons itself, but member-states Canada, the United States, Mexico, Australia, Cuba, Japan and South Africa are nuclear powers.
UNITA (Angolan National Union) [PORTUGESE: União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola; National Union for Total Angolan Independence]: A crypto-nationalist organization which organized the secession of Angola and Namibia from the Union of South Africa and has since become a de facto nation-state. Though a declared member of the Non-Aligned Movement, UNITA has made several strategic alliances with the FSR, leading to the current UNA intervention in Bechuanaland, and the deployment along the southern border of the Congolese Disrecognized Zone. UNITA is not a nuclear power, but is known to be seeking nuclear weapons.